


And the Temples of His Gods

by steelneena



Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [18]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Canon level descriptions of violence., Lucien and Molly are the same person, M/M, Nature/nurture - Freeform, Near Death Experiences, Post-Apocalypse, Varying povs., gruesome depiction of an improperly healed wound, reflections of previous situations, you know all that jazz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: They survive.Whether or not that’s a blessing or a curse is something about which they disagree, even on the best of days.And then, a familiar face finds them, and the world begins to course correct, whether they like it or not.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280990
Comments: 17
Kudos: 86





	1. And How Can Man Die Better

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to senor_sparklefingers again for the beta.  
> This fic is complete, but the beta is not quite. I will post the rest of the chapters over the next several days because I have no patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains description of a mishealed wound. For description, see end note.

“And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods?" 

~ _The Lays of Ancient Rome,_ Thomas Babington Macaulay 

1\. And How Can Man Die Better

They survive.

Whether or not that’s a blessing or a curse is something about which they disagree, even on the best of days.

The world is changed. The landscape of all Exandria – so they imagine, considering they’ve not left the country since, much less the continent – is altered nearly beyond recognition. At least, it is at first.

The Great Convergence.

History unraveled.

Or, as Beau put it, the End of the Fucking World 2.0.

(Caleb preferred to call it the Second Great Calamity, but Caduceus was determined to hold onto _Convergence_ ).

That night – well, it hadn’t really been night, the sky had simply darkened – when the Chain Oblivion broke through and the gods destroyed the divine gate and the world crumbled in the wake of their combined wrath.

And then, it was over and the world went on.

It takes longer now, getting from place to place, but they make do. Even though the world is blown to pieces, giant craters, strange, uprooted shards of earth, miles high, the only thing standing in a leveled plain, barren of life, arresting new mountain ranges like the spine of a god’s back, dotted with strange and unfamiliar fauna, they always make do.

Caduceus spends most of his time thinking. Thinking and praying. Magic is different now, especially of the divine kind, and while Jester is still struggling to adapt (there’s little he can do to comfort her, bereft as she is of the presence that accompanied and comforted her her whole life long), and Fjord is lost once more, floundering in the wake, Caduceus finds that his connection with Melora really isn’t all that different at all. He can still hear her, still connect with her, still perform minor feats, but the tether is weak, though his faith is strong. It’s funny, to him at least, how Caleb continues to try and rationalize their diminished connections, despite the fact that the gods are now free of the divine gate that had separated them from their followers for so long. For all his learning and intellect, Caduceus privately thinks that he doesn’t really understand the gods very well at all. His learned magic and their faith connection…well, they’re completely different things; the gods did battle, and, just like people do, he reasoned when it first happened, they need time to recover. And gods, who are immortal, though not all powerful, obviously need an adequate and relative time to recover. Comparable to that of a human’s life, Caduceus imagines that the gods must need quite a lot of time to mend, living forever and all.

So, he doesn’t fret overmuch. He figures that even he will be long gone before balance is truly restored, and the elegant natural beauty of his mother returned to its greatest capacity. Regardless, he prays, follows the same tenets as always, and, generally, tends to forget that anything is different at all, save when Jester or Fjord attempt something, only for the power to fizzle, or never root at all.

The disappointment on their faces is what hurts the most.

Yasha, for all that she is connected to her god too, never had the same sort of relationship, and takes it all in dour stride. (He knows she takes so much of the blame onto herself, but he tries to be supportive when she’s open to close camaraderie at all; she speaks so rarely these days). Beau’s edges, which had begun to soften, have grown sharper than ever, and Caleb’s ever-present thirst for knowledge has grown ever more desperate, almost alarming. And Nott – her desperation is something different altogether. Jester seems to understand the most.

(They still don’t know what’s happened to Nicodranas, but the truth is that total annihilation is the only answer, just like the rest of the swath through which they’ve carved their way south in the Empire.)

The longer it takes them to traverse the newly unfamiliar landscape, the more disconsolate and desperate at turns she’s grown.

It’s hard to be the only one who feels at peace in a world destroyed, but then, that’s not really all too different from what things had been like _before_ the Convergence, and Caduceus has long ago made peace with the probability that he might never see his family or his home again.

Yet, here they were.

The Will of the Mother.

(That thought, he kept private.)

They’re weeks into the journey across the infant mountain range when Caleb steps wrong, the tentative stone falling away from beneath his feet, sending him plummeting down into a ravine. It takes hours to reach him, handicapped as they are for the lack of magic they now possess, and the long, long time that they have been traveling on meagre rations. When they do make it to his side, he is unconscious and deathly pale, his breathing harsh and ragged. For once, Jester is hardened and only their combined efforts manage to stop him from bleeding out, sealing the wounds as best as they can manage. Their potions they’ve hoarded for only the most dire of circumstances, and they feed him the largest one in their desperation.

Everything mends eventually, but his leg – which was mostly mangled in the fall – never fully heals, slowing them even more as he hobbles on the stiff, rigid leg, wincing painfully whenever its jostled wrong. Caduceus tries more than once to heal him more completely, and Jester does so too, but nothing seems to take and they adapt to their new pace resolute in their refusal to leave him behind, despite his insistence. Once, even, Yasha elects to carry him, offering no words even as he admonished her; her self-imposed silence will not be broken, not even to silence her friend’s idiotic suggestions.

It's maybe a month later, maybe a month and a half (Caleb probably still counts, but he no longer shares unless someone outright asks. No one recently has felt like it, and Caduceus doesn’t particularly care) when they hear the first sounds of life.

Some creatures survived – after all, they couldn’t be the _only_ ones – and they’d subsisted on what little there was to hunt and forage, but other _people_ , that was new.

The only the people they’d seen before were corpses.

Lots and lots of corpses.

(Caduceus thinks that he could never say enough prayers for all of them, but – as evidenced by their survival – life does, in fact, go on.)

They’re in the first scions of foothills when Caduceus first hears the voices, quickly hushing everyone else around him, who still like deer in the sight of a predator. 

Now that they’ve stopped moving, now that the world is comparatively silent around them, the strange, guttural sounds of a language form within his hearing, though not his understanding. For the first time, he’s relatively nervous, his ears twitching, taking in the subtle cracks of branches and the brush of people against underbrush, the unnatural disturbances of nature. Putting up a hand to halt them, Beau quickly silences Fjord who opens his mouth to undoubtedly ask what’s going on, though he only ends up emitting a grunt when Beau’s rock solid fist makes contact with his shoulder. From his peripherals, Caduceus can see Beau shush Fjord and the others, and then point at him.

In the silence, Caduceus listens.

There is nothing, now, nothing at all, which is far more worrisome than anything else he couldn’t have otherwise heard.

And then, suddenly, behind them, his ears twitching back, he hears a swish, like a long tail through the air, but it’s different than Jester’s and Jester is in front of him and-

Cold steel presses to his back.

A hiss goes up from Yasha.

Caduceus goes still.

“Who are you and what do you-“ a low, svelte voice, with rolling r’s and sonorous vowels says before abruptly cutting off. “It’s _you_. This is…surprising.”

The steel lowers and Caduceus feels himself breathe again as he turns around, finding himself face to face with midnight black fur and feline features, surprisingly familiar though he can’t place quite why.

Though, it appears, he won’t have to.

“Cree.” Fjord says, a measure of surprise in his tone. “That you’re here is no less surprising that the fact that we are. All it say is that we both managed to survive.”

The tabaxi woman cocks her head, her nostrils flaring, and looks them over. “Perhaps. I see why Lucien kept your company so doggedly.”

There are others, Caduceus notices, one for each of them, save Yasha, who has two standing at her side, their weapons lowered, though he can tell that, just like them, the others are tensed, ready to spring into action, the ropy coils of their musculature taut and elastic.

“Well. We will take you back to the camp then.” Her gaze lowers, and she zeroes in on Caleb’s maimed leg, on the way he hold Beau’s staff as a crutch. “It is greatly apparent that you could use rest. Follow.”

And what choice do they have but to do so? Caduceus is still wracking his brain to recall where they’ve met her before, and if he’s ever actually heard any of the Nein speak about a Lucien, but then, there’s lots of things he still doesn’t know about them. He turns to follow but Beau, and he’s not terribly surprised that its Beau, stops him.

“Wait.” Obediently, and mostly mindlessly, Caduceus stops mid stride. “Why would you take us with you? This is…fuck – this is a fucking disaster and supplies are scarce and you want to help us? Why would you do that?”

“Duh, Beau,” Jester says, her voice confident, without even a trace of the shakiness that it had taken on in the time since the Convergence. “Because _Lucien_ liked us. And if Lucien liked us, then Cree likes us, right Cree? Also, do you know what happened to my dad? Because I’m really kinda worried about him and-“

“Jester,” Caleb says, tersely. “Later. Later we can ask about your father. Not now.”

It only clicks after a few minutes of walking that Cree was one of the Gentleman’s employees. Fjord had spoken to her, while Caduceus was trying his first – and only – alcoholic drink. But Lucien is still a mystery, one which intrigues Caduceus, but only in the abstract. There are more pressing concerns than a former friend of the Mighty Nein from a time Pre-Caduceus.

They stalk silently through the wooded hillocks, the craggy outcroppings lessening the further that they delve. Cree is an adept guide – that, or she knows the way quite well, or, Caduceus considers, some combination of both. The rest of her party, which is made up primarily of half-elves, and a few others about whom Caduceus isn’t certain, speak not a word, taking the rear, watching the Nein like hawks. While Cree seemed open enough about her intent to help, it appears that her strange and trusting hospitality doesn’t extend to the rest of her group.

Eventually, after a few pauses, wherein the tabaxi’s whole body went rigid, only the tip of her tail flicking dangerously, they come to a clearing in the trees. It’s not homey by any stretch of the imagination, nor comfortable, but it rests just to the left of a great rocky outcropping, like something had shoved a spike up out of the earth and left it there for trees to miraculously sprout around. It’s beauty is alien, but they’d seen enough sorts of things in their time in Xhorhaas that Caduceus hasn’t been thrown by any of the sights along their path, this least of all. As atypical a sight it is there, protruding in the middle of the trees, he pays it little mind.

A fire is shouldering in the center of a dry, dusty circle. The meagre grass has been stamped out, trampled by the unforgiving pattern of many feet, day after day. Logs are piled nearby, and there are a few bedrolls laying out around the camp. As they move farther down the side of the hill, it’s clear that a lean-to has been erected against the outcropping, large, with an apparent opening in the top, through which smoke haplessly drifts into the murky grey of the nearly entirely obscured sky.

A tiefling steps out from the lean-to. His hair is close cropped, and his skin is a strange, translucent sort of red that speaks to illness or fatigue, though his arms – bare and uncovered, though his chest is obscured by finely worked black leather armor – are muscle toned, and he looks rather the opposite of gaunt.

“Cree,” he intones as he nears them. Caduceus notices the absolute abyss of his eyes, as black as the sky when the barrier broke and Tharizdun laid waste to the world. “Why have you brought these people here.” He speaks in the same lilting accent as Cree, one that Caduceus is slowly connecting to the Xhorhaasians of Rohsona.

Cree, unfazed by the display stops just short of him. “They know Lucien. Step aside Tyffial, they bare us no harm. They are weak and desperately in need of our help.” She gestures absently to Caleb, who is leaning heavily on his good leg and the staff. “I will vouchsafe them on Lucien’s good word.”

Tyffial – for that is apparently his name – raises a brow. “Very well.” He raises a hand, pointing at one behind them. “Mirhaal. Show them a place to bed down. Make that one comfortable,” he says, jerking his head in Caleb’s direction before turning, with his brow still raised, and heading back to the lean-to, where he disappears.

Mirhaal turns out to be one of the half elves, with dark red hair and dark golden toned skin – much darker than Beau – whose eyes flash an unnaturally vibrant gold from under the ragged fringe. They’re a lean individual, sharp of feature and willowy in build. Silently, they lead the Nein to a place near the fire and even help Caleb down themselves.

When the Nein are settled, they walk away as wordlessly as they were the entire time, but the Nein are not long left alone before Cree settles herself on a nearby log and looks at them hard.

“I would ask you how to managed to survive.”

“Well, we could ask you the same.” Nott says, eyeing her warily.

The tabaxi’s lip twitches, but it’s a fond expression, Caduceus notes, surprisingly. It’s not what he anticipated from her, but neither did he really anticipate much of anything. She’s not exactly easy to read, but neither is she a stone wall through which he can see nothing.

“Surviving is my business. I have survived many things. I will survive many more.”

Before she can continue, a dragonborn, his scales silvery, though not quite as pearlescent as Caduceus might have expected – they look rather dull, but then, life hasn’t been treating anyone well lately – steps up at her side.

“Tyffial wants you,” he says in a low rumble.

A strange huff, half between a growl and a hiss, escapes slightly barred lips. “Very well.”

And with that, Cree leaves them, heading herself to the lean-to where Tyffial had disappeared. The dragonborn apparently has no compunctions about leaving them to their own devices and lumbers off after her, much to the groups apparent surprise. Beau, with a grunt, does finally sit down beside Caleb, busying herself with inspecting his leg, uselessly for all she knows of medicine, but Caduceus knows that she’s been struggling in her own, clipped, compassionate way.

It’s hard when power that one is used to is wrested away so easily, and Beau has never been one to leave her life in the hands of fate, nor anyone else’s for that matter. Her problem, Caduceus has deduced, is that, for all her cynical nature may seem to deny it, she’s too empathetic for her own good.

She wants better, and she’d always taken what she wanted, and now, what she wants is so far out of her ability to grasp.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, and an even more difficult truth to bear.

Caduceus doesn’t press her. It won’t help anything anyways.

There’s movement within the camp. Mirhaal comes back over to them, arms folded, and announces in a soft, lilting, almost dreamy voice, that a healer is desired.

Caduceus looks to Jester, and finds that she is already looking at him.

“What’s wrong?” she asks after a moment. “Is someone hurt?”

Mirhaal’s expression is inscrutable. “A healer has been requested,” they repeat without addition or alteration, waiting.

It is Caduceus who stands. “Guess I’ll go.”

No one puts up a fight.

Dusk is descending upon them as Mirhaal leads Caduceus to the lean-to, which is rather more substantial than he’d thought upon first glance. It’s enclosed, for one, though the doorway is open to the elements save a billowing black cloth, over which has been embroidered a red symbol, and the smoke coming from within is sweet; not quite like incense or perfume, woodier, like earth and plant matter.

Mirhaal holds aside the curtain and Caduceus ducks his way inside.

A single shaft of slanting, dim light, cuts through the dark interior and down to the barren ground. In that illuminated column, a bowl, full of some sort of plant matter, is smoking away, the sweet, unrecognizable scent wafting through the air before being lifting up and out of the lean-to. Behind it, there is mostly gloom. From beyond, Cree emerges, a living shadow and beckons him forward.

As Caduceus’ eye adjust, he sees the angular figure sitting on a makeshift throne before him. Horns curl around his head, their tips pointing back towards his ears, leaving a strong profile in Caduceus’ field of vision. More pointedly, a pair of red, glowing eyes gleam out from the darkness.

Caduceus steps forward, into the slant of light, and the figure comes into vision.

His bearing is regal. High collared, fitted black robes – save that same symbol, embroidered over the heart - garb him and his tail swishes from beneath the cape that is hung over one shoulder, attached by cording that is tied under his opposite arm. Only his hands and face are exposed, and Caduceus takes the time to ponder his visage. Long hair is tied back partly, pulled tightly against his skull and behind his ears, hanging in limp waves over his shoulders. His lips are set in a thin line, his cheeks a little sunken. Dark, pointed talons rise from the points of his fingers.

In the waning light, Caduceus thinks that this tiefling may be a shade of purple or grey, as opposed to Tyffial’s washed out red pigmentation.

“So you are the healer.” Though this obvious leader speaks with an unchallenged authority, there is curiosity in his voice more than anything else, and he cocks his head, looking at Caduceus with great interest. When he leans forward in the chair, Caduceus catches a slight wince – slight enough that it’s not obviously noticeable, but not much gets past Caduceus, at least, not of that sort. There even a moment where Cree flinches forward, as if to help the tiefling, but a mere and unassuming flick of the finger sends her still.

“Yes, I’m Caduceus. Caduceus Clay. Happy to help.”

It’s laborious for him to stand, Caduceus can tell, though he hides it very well. When he’s full to standing, he doesn’t hunch, doesn’t even lean a hand regally on the chair, like he could have. One hand goes to his waist, clutching at the hilt of a gleaming silvered sword, and the other swans out in front of him by way of greeting, though he doesn’t tip his head. Instead, his chin is lifted, and an expression that Caduceus wouldn’t quite call a sneer – something rather less malicious than that – curls his lip. Something halfway between dignified and somber.

“Welcome to my camp,” he says in the same accent as Cree.

“Thank you for your hospitality.” It’s like testing waters, the way Caduceus begins this conversation. “That’s uh, mighty nice of you.”

“Cree assures me that you are…trustworthy individuals.” The look on his face is impossible to parse, so Caduceus simply ceases trying. Something will make it all clear eventually. It usually does. “And I am in need of a cleric.” Without further words, he puts his arms up to his sides and Cree moves in, ducking in and around him as she undoes the cape rapidly, dropping it over the chair so that she can unbuckle the armor from his torso. “Cree has done all she can for me, but second opinions never hurt, do they?” A hint of morbid humour (to which Caduceus finds he can relate) colours his tone as Cree pulls the armored leather away, revealing a black robe of a similar construction beneath it, small silver buttons lining the shoulder all the way up to the neck. Meticulously, she undoes them. “Cree is supremely skilled,” he continues, non-chalantly, even as his scarred torso is bared and Caduceus can see, for the first time, exactly what it is that pains him. “But through no fault of her own, we have found this…difficult to heal.”

That, Caduceus thinks as he examines the tiefling’s chest, is an understatement. Though the skin over his chest is knitted together thoroughly, the healing seemingly complete, starburst silver scar included beside the strangely cut off remains of many, many now ruined tattoos, but the bone and cartilage structure beneath are so deformed that Caduceus can hardly imagine how he can stand the likely constant pain.

“That’s…”Caduceus blinks wildly. “Wow.”

“Quite an astute observation.” The retort is wry, but not unkind.

One hand outstretched, Caduceus steps forward again. “May I?”

The tiefling inclines his head in invitations, and Caduceus sets to work. Over the hills and dips of his ribs, Caduceus runs his fingers lightly, into the concave valley between his pectorals; the splintered remnants of his sternum are easy to feel beneath the fragile skin, as jagged as the terrain through which they’d crossed to get to the ramshackle camp in which they now reside.

“I’m not in pain,” the tiefling says, and Caduceus notices that his pupilless red eyes look straight ahead the entire time, never even wavering. “It is just…uncomfortable.”

Well, it’s only _half_ a lie, Caduceus figures, so he doesn’t call him on it.

“I can give it a try, of course. But we still need your healer to help Caleb, so I’m not sure how much use either I or Jester might be.”

The tiefling sniffs, disdainfully. “Different gods. Different divine qualities. There is no harm in trying.”

To the side of them, as Caduceus palpitates the destroyed remnants of his chest, Cree shifts anxiously. There is acute care, he’s noticed, in the way that she looks at the tiefling, in the way that she moves around him, in how gently and reverently she touches him, _when_ she does. And yet, that care…it’s so mothering, Caduceus could hardly mistake it for anything else.

There is love in Cree for this strange, rigid person, who refuses to admit that he’s in pain, who apparently is the undisputed leader of this group, and yet, for whom such compassion is inspired by his friends. Perhaps, it is something to do with the gruesome way in which he’d been wounded.

(Well, that’s a misnomer, and Caduceus knows it. Killed is probably more apt. No one could survive this, not initially. No one.)

Dying for people has that effect.

Gently, he brushes he fingers over the fragile skin, eliciting the first real response.

A shiver.

“What’s your name?” Caduceus asks, focusing his intent on the mishealed disaster.

“Lucien.” The tone is clipped, but his thick accent trips over the word beautifully.

Pressing his hand flat across Lucien’s chest, Caduceus closes his eyes and thinks of the beauty of his Mother, but the damage to their connection is strong, and he sighs, letting his hand fall away.

“Things are different now.” He looks up to Lucien, attempting to subtly gauge his reaction, but there’s no tells on the stark face. “There’s incense in my pack, and herbs. I’ll need them to magnify my connection.”

Lucien nods briefly to Cree, who exists, and now, Caduceus knows, he has a fraction of a chance. “My friends haven’t mentioned a Lucien,” he begins conversationally, inspecting Lucien’s chest again, eyes only flickering upwards occasionally. “but your friend, Cree, she says that you know them well.” When Lucien takes a breath, there’s nothing to indicate he does so with difficulty. That, in itself, is miraculous enough. After a moment’s intense silence, Caduceus continues. “They did have a friend before they met me, who left them. They talk about him sometimes, but mostly they keep it to themselves. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

More silence.

Caduceus thinks he’s going to have to concede this one, because Cree should be getting back soon, when Lucien finally speaks.

“Tell me about your friends.”

It’s strange, Caduceus thinks, for someone who supposedly _knows_ the Mighty Nein to ask to be told about them, but then, Caduceus has already gotten the impression that something more is going on here. Something that only he can react to in an unbiased manner. It’s a good thing that he went instead of Jester, he thinks. A very good thing. The pieces are there, they’re almost in place, but not quite. Not quite.

“Well, there’s Jester and Caleb, and I already mentioned them.” Lucien gives a terse nod, but that’s all. “And Beau, Nott and Fjord. And Yasha too, now that she’s back.”

Lucien’s chin jerks _hard_ at her name and Caduceus can’t help but match his gaze. What he sees there is indescribable. It’s roiling and fiery and altogether passionate.

“She’s missed you a lot, I think.”

Quietly, almost too softly to hear, well for anyone save Caduceus, Lucien speaks.

“I braided flowers in her hair.”

Just then, Cree arrives, pulling aside the curtain to the interior, light flooding the space, and Lucien blinks out of whatever memory he’d fallen into, and the moment ends.

“Your pack.” She says in a clipped tone. “Your friends are getting anxious. Work quickly.”

“Patience, Cree,” Lucien admonishes, and it’s fascinating how quickly he’s returned to…well…Caduceus isn’t sure if ‘himself’ is the right word or not.

He bends down, taking the pack and pulling the necessary components from it, arranging things in a pleasing presentation, lighting the special incense and scattering the herbs around Lucien in a circle. The heavily cloying smoke caresses them with tender whorls.

“Maybe we’d better sit.” Caduceus decides, and when Lucien nods, Cree rushes to his aid, helping him to the ground gingerly, and sitting behind him, one paw on his shoulder.

Once more, Caduceus descends into meditation, calling on the Mother, inhaling the smoke, and recalling the warm, breezy feel of her presence, how she wraps him up in sunshine and nurtures him with her love. He lets it coalesce, lets it come together in a tight, vine-like balls of radiant power at his core, lets it travel up to his heart, down his arm, out to his hand, fingertips glowing bright with power as he lays his palm over Lucien’s chest, and urges it to disperse.

There’s a gruesome cracking sound and a sharp hiss of breath and then, the light recedes. When Caduceus comes back to himself, more exhausted than he should have been, he can see that nothing is really changed at all. Perhaps, a few bones reattached in some places, but the sternum itself is still splintered, and Lucien’s face is awash with pain.

“I’m sorry.” It’s all he can say. “I did the best I could.”

Cree looks upset, but, through the haze of pain on Lucien’s features, Caduceus sees only long ingrained resignation.

“You have done something, and that is enough.” He sits forward from Cree, who reaches back for him reflexively. “Cree, go see to their Caleb. Perhaps you can do something for him. And send Yasha back to me when you do. Healer Clay will help me with my things.”

Even though Cree looks taken aback, Caduceus isn’t. They both recognize the dismissal, and Cree narrows her eyes a moment, before nodding her head deferentially and disappearing back out of the lean-to.

“I do not remember them,” Lucien admits suddenly, before attempting to stand by himself; Caduceus reaches to help him anyways, and Lucien is not too proud to accept the help where it’s needed. Without words, Caduceus sets to rebuttoning the dark robe at the shoulder, and then, lefts the armor to help him on with it. “But I remember her. I remember flowers. And singing. Soft singing. She smells of ozone. And the earth after lightning.” A pause. “I remember her.” His tone is one of awe, of soft longing and Caduceus feels it tremor through him.

“She knew you by a different name, I think, if I’m not mistaking things.”

A nod.

“They call you Mollymauk.”

No recognition colours his face, and Caduceus sighs. “They’ll be unhappy that you don’t remember.”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“I think you’ll find that they’ll surprise you.”

“Perhaps,” Lucien replies, thoughtfully, as the last buckle is settled in place and his armor is tight to his torso once more. “Perhaps not.”

From outside, they hear a howling cry of agony, and a snap, and then, nothing.

“That would be your friend’s leg, I imagine.”

Lucien is particularly droll, but Caduceus can sense a bit of an edge to it, even as he ties the shoulder cape back on. It’s hard, he imagines, not to remember things that one _ought_ , reasonably, remember. Especially when there are people who will look into ones face with love and terror alike, and one cannot fathom what for. It’s a terrible fate, truly, though perhaps worse for those who _can_ remember, than for those who cannot.

And then there’s the fact that, apparently, he can remember Yasha, if only in snippets.

Caduceus isn’t sure if that’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing, but there’s little use in dwelling on it.

“I could try again, perhaps tomorrow? I’m a little more tuckered out than usual, these days, after I cast a spell.”

 _Since the Convergence_ , goes unsaid, but Lucien’s gaze is knowing, even though he shakes his head. “I think that you have done what you can, and I will be satisfied with it.” The strange determination to suffer is one that Caduceus _hasn’t_ yet figured out. “You would be better spent aiding your friend. I’m sure he will be aching for some days to come.”

“Caleb’s strong.” _And so are you, but you don’t have to be._

Lucien ignores him.

Light floods the chamber once more, and Caduceus turns to look into it, following Lucien’s gaze. He expects to see Yasha in Cree’s wake, but instead, the entirety of the Mighty Nein file into the small space. As the curtain falls and their eyes adjust to the dim glow, it is Beau’s gasp that comes first. Already, he can picture how she’ll tense with energy, how she’ll lunge forward, how it’ll no doubt be disastrous, but, before he can stop her, before she can even begin to move, there is a resounding _thud_ as Yasha’s knees hit the ground, stilling all other intention before action can take shape.

_“Mollymauk!”_

His name from her lips is a wound, brilliant red, pulsing, bleeding from her mouth, pooling into the silence that it reinforces, soaking into the hush, turning its pale, shaky surprise to passion’s arterial scarlet, punctuated only by the clear truth of her tears as they roll down her cheeks before splashing to the ground.

His name from her lips is its own Calamity, destruction in its wake, the ground opening up beneath the Nein, swallowing them whole as surely as the Ruins of Molaesmyr were swallowed as they watched on in the resulting quake when the Divine Gate shattered months ago.

Within this wretched silence, Caduceus and the Nein watch on as Lucien looks down upon Yasha, her face a mask of pain and hope, and lowers himself to his knees before her. (The others are too stunned to notice, but his face wrenches in pain momentarily. In his hands, he takes Yasha’s, bringing her knuckles to his lips and kissing them tenderly, his gaze unwavering. They are drawn together; it’s a beautiful thing to watch, like the sun bowing to kiss the flower, and Caduceus feels as it sears his heart, knowing what he does. Knowing what they don’t.

“Yasha.” Lucien’s accent remains, and that is all it takes to break the beautiful prism of the moment, their faces, one by one, falling in distress. “You sang me to sleep at night. I braided flowers into your hair. Nightmares in the storm…” He drops one of her hands, instead pressing a palm against her cheek with the utmost care. A movement in the corner of the room draws Caduceus’ attention, but it is only Caleb holding Beau back, a look of warning across his features. “My…charm.”

In an instant, Lucien is taken into Yasha’s embrace; she holds him there, weeping, her hand tangling into his hair as she presses his face into her shoulder, uncaring of the way that his horns nick at her skin.

For a while, he tolerates it. Well, that’s a little unfair. He more than tolerates it, that should be clear enough to any onlooker. But eventually, Lucien pulls away, taking Yasha’s hand again as he does, and without betraying any pain, stands on his own, drawing her up with him.

“Cree saw to you leg, yes?” he asks, out of the blue, and the shock shatters and only anger is left.

Beau lunges, and it takes Jester and Fjord to help Caleb hold he back.

“Who are you! Who the _fuck_ are you!” she yells through furious tears. “Yasha that’s not- it’s _not,_ it’s _not!_ ” Against their grasp, Beau continues to struggle to no avail. It doesn’t help that Lucien ignores her, finally looking away from Yasha to the group, though his eyes to not settle on Caleb.

“Cree saw to your wizard’s leg?”

Caleb nods. “She did her part, yes. Thank you.”

“Don’t you _fucking thank him, don’t you fucking-“_

Suddenly, Beau stops moving, and her eyes widen.

“You will cease.”

Blood drips from the red eye on Lucien’s hand to the ground, and Beau’s expression darkens to one of incandescent rage.

Lucien’s gaze is cold. “You will reinjure your wizard if you do not calm yourself,” he chastens, then, looking her up and down, adds, “Still your mind, Expositor, since your body will remain still until you do.”

Caduceus isn’t sure that was exactly the best course of action to take, but, whatever he did, it was certain effective.

With purpose, Lucien turns away from the livid Beauregard, takes both of Yasha’s hands again and says the fatal words.

“I am not your Mollymauk.”

A pin could have dropped in that moment, and a thousand miles away, a rabbit would have heard it. This, Caduceus believes.

“I am not your Mollymauk, but I remember the softness of your voice, and the rough callouses of these hands as they carded through my hair, and how you held me through the storm, for I was still terrified in those days. I remember you, my charm, your smile, your tears, I remember the day you saved my life, the day you told me why you kept the flowers…But I remember nothing else. Conversations. Snippets, flashes of emotion and conversation and sensation. That is all. But I _feel_ …” his voice cracked, and Caduceus could see that it was genuine, could feel in in his bones, even if Beau, upon quick glance, was still blinded by rage, and bound in place by a blood magic even Caduceus couldn’t fathom. “I _feel_ … _so_ much.”

Emotion joined the smoke for thickening the air.

“Why do I keep the flowers?” Yasha asked, looking down at where Lucien’s hands clutched hers.

“For Zuala,” he replies, softly, gently, and she lets out a sob so wretched, that Caduceus feels his own tears brimming. Yasha pitches forward into Lucien then, holding him as she slides to the ground, her head pressed against his abdomen, and his hands find her hair, petting soothingly.

Only then, does he look to the Nein. “I do not lie to any of you. I do not lie at all. You are welcome in this camp. I am sorry, I do not remember any of the rest of you, but you are welcome all the same. Go. Find what rest you can. Consider what you will say, what questions you will ask. Come to terms with this truth, and tomorrow, we’ll talk.”

Cree starts forward, as if to usher them out, but Lucien raises his free hand, the one still oozing blood. “If you need further healing, wizard, you will have it. Expositor, my apologies, though I fear you care little for them, and they’re paltry by way of recompense. Tomorrow, you may accost me, but tonight, let there be peace, whatever we are able to achieve in this ruined world.”

And with a blink of his eye, movement returns to Beauregard, whose body is on fire with vibration, ready to pounce, but resisting the urge. Jester is in tears, and Fjord is what passes as pale. Nott is snarling near Caleb’s feet. It is only Caleb who remains impassive, if Caduceus discounts himself. But it is no longer the time for that.

“Whelp. Looks like we’d better set up night camp. Let’s go.” And with that, he whisks them summarily from the makeshift tent, leaving Yasha behind, curled into Lucien bodily, confident that he will do her no harm. That every fibre of his untenable being is on fire with affection for her.

There can be no doubt.

Cree follows them out, and the other tiefling moves into a guard position outside the curtain, and they allow themselves to be corralled back to the camp around the fire, beneath the strange new starry skies. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the wound from Lorenzo's glaive (he twisted the blade, which would have cracked the bone), and issues with his Rez, Molly's sternum is still partially caved in. It's less brutal and more unsettling.


	2. Than Facing Fearful Odds

2.Than Facing Fearful Odds 

Yasha’s heart pounds within her wildly, unfairly, unrestrainedly. It almost feels like it will leap from without her chest, it’s so tender with the reality of him that she can hardly bear it. Torturous and desirable all at once, she doesn’t know _what_ to do with it.

With _him_.

She can feel his chest rise and fall from beneath her cheek, can feel the familiar talon-like nails against her scalp as he cards through her hair with a gentle, albeit purposeful touch. More than anything, its grounding. It holds her steady in a way that she knows she needs. Far too long has she been more fragile than she’d care to admit. For all her anger, for all her anguish, she’s liable to fall apart so easily these days. Her failures have compiled, double, exponentially amassed, and she can’t help but _know_ that she contributed to the mess that has befallen the world.

That she helped to usher in the utter ruin in which it now lies.

And yet, here is something completely and utterly unexpected.

Shifting her head a bit, Yasha looks up at _him_ from under dark, wet eyelashes, thick with her tears.

“How?” she breathes, as loud as a ghost, for she feels dead. She _must_ be dead.

This is hell.

Hell is all the things you want, but not the way you wanted them.

Hell is in _almost._

Hell is _Lucien_ , and not Molly.

“Oh, my charm,” he says, sinking through her embrace to the floor, to look her in the eyes on her level. “that is what Clerics are for. Now,” His thumb slips over her cheeks, catching the tears as they fall. “no need for that.” The smile he flashes her is crooked and toothy, but his eyes are intense, like he _remembers_ how Molly was, but can’t quite pull it off, like he’s trying to soothe her, and instead it only makes her grow more fierce, but then, very suddenly, he’s drawing her forehead to his, and they bump together, and even were he to speak in that unfamiliar accent, it mightn’t be enough to break the memory that she slips into as he begins to softly shush and lull her, stroking the back of her head as they sway together, eyes locked, almost straining to focus because they’re so close, like so, so many times before. “I’m here. And you are here, and we are together, my charm. And isn’t that a good thing? I miss you on stormy nights, Yasha.”

It’s enough to make her heart break and her blood boil, but she melts into it as easily as ever, as easily as always, soul to soul through a mere touch.

It’s enough to drive her mad.

“Don’t _use_ him like that against me!” she cries with a cold fury, pushing herself back.

Except...she doesn’t move. Not at all. She stays exactly where she is, willing herself to move, and then _doesn’t_. It’s perplexing, because she knows all too intimately what magical control feels like and this? Well, this isn’t it. But she’s bound in place all the same.

Lucien doesn’t chuckle darkly, as she expects.

He just keeps petting at her hair, soothing.

After a while, she stops fighting herself and sinks into him, relishing in the familiar feel of his lithe form against hers, though, instead of soft, warm flesh, she feels the cold deadness of his leather armor, a surprise to be sure, but then, she never knew Lucien, and the world has because an even more harsh place than she had known it to be before.

Eventually, he pulls back, lifting her bowed head by a palm to the cheek - his hands are calloused by the use of his scimitars, and that’s familiar, too - and looks her deeply in the eyes.

“Let’s set down somewhere nicer now, yes?”

She can _almost_ hear Molly in his voice. _Let’s sit somewhere nicer now, yeah?_

So, _so_ close.

“Okay,” she acquiesces and goes with him, farther into the little tent-area, where a makeshift bed has been created upon the ground. All the covering are of fur - dark black, some flecked with a soft grey - and he pulls her to sit on their plush loveliness in a time where it seemed that nothing should be so lovely in all the world again, considering.

“There, my dear. You’ll stay with me tonight, yes? My charm? Like you used to?”

Surprised, Yasha looks up at him; the plaintive note in his voice was unmistakable and she feels something clench in her chest protectively.

“Of course.” As if she’d _leave_ him!

The little voice whispering in her head that he isn’t Molly has been forcibly pushed back and away. She doesn’t want to listen to it, not really.

“Then, would you help me with this?” he asks, gesturing to the dark, tattered cape slung over the shoulder, and the armor beneath. “I...I can’t get it on my own.”

Brow furrowing at the hesitation, Yasha bids him turn, and she slips her arms under and around him, undoing the buckle that holds the noble thing in place. It pools to the floor like black oil, and she sets to the armour with ease, noting, once and a while, how his arms don’t lift higher than a certain point. How his breathing hitches when she tugs the least bit carelessly on the buckles holding the armour to his torso.

The black garment he wears beneath - black so much black, _very_ unlike Molly - hangs oddly on his frame. It’s buttoned at the shoulders, like so many other tiefling garments she’d seen, while working with Molly at the carnival, and she goes to them with nimble fingers, even as he holds his breath.

Only when it falls open to his waist does she understand.

Tears course down her cheeks for the second time that evening and she takes in the ruined plane of his chest.

“I wanted you to see,” he begins, almost woodenly, despite the topic. “That way, I knew that you’d understand. I’m not trying to dupe you. This is my failing. I want for you to see it, to know that I am weak, though not quite defenseless. I cannot be healed, it seems. Your companion, he attempted to aid me. I will not attempt to overtake you. I have not welcomed you here with deceitful intent. Now you see what I am, and I hope you understand what an offering it is.”

She does, of course, and, instead of speaking, takes him full in her arms, gentle and tender as ever, and it is her turn to pet at his hair. “I would never hurt you.”

If he can tell that she is speaking to Molly, and not to him, he doesn’t show it. (Not that she can tell precisely which parts of him are Molly and which parts are Lucien.)

“I know.”

Eventually, he helps her off with her breast plate and vambraces, and he handles his own bracers as well, before pulling aside the furs and laying down, looking up at her, bare chested and expectant, a willing sacrifice. It's clear that he believes she could never hurt him. Exposing himself in this way is as much a power play as it is a show of submission. Whether she is about to lay down beside a lion or a lamb is unclear, and yet…

Yasha blows out the lamp before climbing beneath the covers, pulling the pelt back up and over them. In the dark, red eyes glow like unnatural rubies. 

"You're well?" 

It's not the question she expects. It's not one she really knows how to go about answering. 

"I, uh, suppose, yes."

The red glow dims and then flares as he blinks; suddenly, for all his mannerisms, he seems small beside her. Diminished. Frail even. 

She doesn't need to ask him in turn, when she already knows the answer will be 'no', regardless of what he says in reply.

“I need you to tell me about them.” The request is startling to the say the least, and it leaves Yasha completely on edge, her teeth gritting, jaw tight. “I need to understand all of my feelings.”

 _That_ is even more unexpected.

“Feelings?”

“I am weakened physically, but I won’t allow myself to be caught off guard by the emotions that _his_ friends dredge up. The lack of context is making it difficult.”

He doesn’t elaborate any further than that, and she _knows_ that she is expected to speak, but feels at a loss; to tell him almost feels like a betrayal. She’s hardly lulled by his familiar face when the accent with which he speaks, and ever the cadence and tone of the sentences he puts together are off, and yet, something in her bends at the frank ease in which they fall together, two halves of one whole. He is a conundrum, so stiff backed and formal in their moments before, and yet, here he is, curling against her side, completely unselfconscious.

“You and Beau loved to hate one another. You died for her.”

She feels him nod, more than sees it, his horns shifting against the fabric beneath them.

“You and Fjord had a good enough rapport, I guess. I don’t think there was anything particularly special between you. You and Nott liked to tease one another. And you were always protecting Caleb, I guess. Jester was just happy to have another tiefling.” She shrugs, hoping that this is enough, that he won’t ask for more. It feels like prying. Like she’s being the intermediary in some sort of voyeur situation, and yet…

“This is frustrating,” he settles on eventually. “I did not like doing what I did to the Monk.” The comment is biting, and Yasha almost bites back, except that, with a very disgruntled noise, he rolls onto his back to stare up at the blackness that is the tent’s roof. “I also want very much to take the wizard by the hand and lead him to my bed so that I can fuck him into oblivion. I think that will be a problem.”

Before she can realize what she’s doing, Yasha laughs, almost breathless, uncontrollable, and it descends into weeping just as quickly. It’s _so_ painful and confusing and it’s a muddled mess and she doesn’t know what to do, how to separate them, if she even _can_ , _if_ it’s even possible.

It’s more painful almost than learning she’d lost him in the first place. Because he’s near. He’s near and yet, so, so very far away.

Only when a hand finds her face, impossibly gentle fingers wiping away her tears, does Yasha realize that she’s closed her eyes. They fly open in an instant, and he’s the first thing she sees, laying directly across from him as she is. Like they used to.

“Don’t cry,” he says, causing her to cry harder, until she’s weeping again, and he’s drawing her forward, tucking her head under his chin. She knows how uncomfortable it can be for him to lay like this, on his side, but he doesn’t make a peep. Thoughts drifting, her hand finds its way to his chest, and she rests it there, in the valley where his sternum ought to be a plane, and weeps and weeps. She weeps for Molly, she weeps for Beau, and the Nein. Mostly, she weeps for herself, wonders if he’d look at her, disgusted, if he knew of her betrayal, of how she’s comforting herself in the embrace of the creature who stole his body.

Of how kind and gentle he is as he does so, whispering soft and sweet.

Of how she _yearns_ for the bliss of sleeping in his arms, of knowing he’s safe and protected, there with her.

Of knowing that he’s alive.

(Except she’s still not sure if he is, or not, and it’s killing her, _killing her_.)

And then, he starts to sing, softly, and it brings her to pause. The tune is perfect. Every once in a while, the words peter out, as if he only half remembers them, but she _knows_ the song, all too well. The song that Zuala had sung to her, the song that she had sung to him, when once his nightmares were so strong that he wouldn’t come out of them, even after waking, speaking in a foreign tongue, jumping at shadows…

She’d only sung it the once. _Just_ the once. She hadn’t even known he’d been with it enough to recall. And yet, the melancholy chords fall from his lips like the gentle of falling snow, softly muted by the stillness of a nighttime landscape, the moon above them, she remembers, full and pregnant with silvery light that anointed him like teardrops as she sung, as she left forth that piece of her, that piece that had been locked away so very tightly, so very long ago. How he had soothed in her arms, stilled, fell back into the light measure of sleep he was due.

How he had woken and never _once_ given indication that he remembered a single thing from that night. Never once.

And then, terrifyingly, Yasha has a thought that causes her to pull back. Startled, a little like a deer, he looks at her with wide eyes, waiting as the silence stretches between them.

Maybe it wasn’t _Molly_ who remembered that night. Maybe it wasn’t _Molly_ she’d cradled.

Or, maybe, Molly and Lucien aren’t so very –

It’s too late to cut the thought off, but she does anyways, realizing that she still has her hand on his chest, that he’s still watching her, waiting, tense and patient.

She holds his life in her hands and he knows it.

The tears in her eyes _burn_ , furiously, and she pulls her hand away as though the very touch of him is poisonous, rolling to her back so that she doesn’t have to look at him, so that she doesn’t have to confront the terrible, awful truth that’s roiling and raging in the back of her head like a ferocious storm. Like the world is ending all over again, and this time, she’s going to be swallowed by one of the cracks in it’s surface as everything shakes and crumbles around her.

Whatever his perception of her, he clearly understands the body language, and simply resettles himself, unspeaking. At some point, he must drift off, and it speaks _volumes_ that he trusts her so much. Eventually, unable to stay awake any longer, her revelation still circling around in her head, endlessly, Yasha, too, succumbs to the bliss of unconscious slumber.

It’s no surprise that she wakes first. Often, she’s rising with the dawn, but _he_ is still dozing beside her, huddled beneath the covers on his back, his legs turned to the side and pulled up. Molly’d slept that way often. It’s one more thing Yasha adds to her mental tally. The minute part of his lips, the soft whistle of breath between them…all of it is the same. His dark plum lashes flutter over his cheeks.

Yasha watches him.

All her life, indecision, cowardice has plagued her. All her life, she’s struggled with making the choices that felt easy, the choices that allowed her to slip away, to survive, at the expense of others. All her life. She’s failed so many. Molly included.

But she will not fail him again.

Mind settled, she leans over him gently and presses a kiss to his temple, and then lays down beside him, tugging him into her embrace. She knows he would have struggled with her revelation, knows how much he would have despised it, but he was always just as good as she at running away from things. At pretending. At hiding.

It’s time to be impulsive, for once.

_“Sometimes, Yash, all it takes is thinking it’s true enough, to make it be.”_

She does more than think. She believes.

Beneath her arm, she feels the rhythm of his breathing change as he wakes.

“Good morning, Molly,” she says simply, waiting to be denied, waiting for him to reprimand her.

Between her words and his, she counts the passage of time in beats of his heart. Of (hopefully) _Molly’s_ heart _._

“Good morning, my charm,” is the equally simple reply.

It’s a start.

They go about their morning’s ablutions in relative peace, not really speaking to one another, though the silence isn’t uncomfortable by any means. Before, Yasha knows that Molly would have talked up a storm, just to keep her company, but she would often remain quiet; all the same, she doesn’t dislike the calm between them, as though they’ve silently reached some sort of agreement on the whole, a tentative alliance. 

_I’m curious_ , his sidelong glances imply. 

_I love you regardless,_ hers answer back. She thinks he understands. 

When it comes to anything that requires him to extend his arms too far above his head, Molly needs help, that much is apparent. Likely, it was Cree who had been assisting him before, but he seems content enough for Yasha to help him with his clothes, armor, and hair, which he keeps tied back just around his ears, the rest flowing loose. It was hard for him, before, to keep it that way, because of his swords, how he used to slice them across the back of his neck reflexively, shearing whatever locks he had managed to grow past a certain point. 

A large part of her is sure that the only reason it is as long as it is now, is because he _can’t_ wield them in that way, anymore, though the callouses on his hands speak to a readiness to fight that implies many, many hours spent practicing. She’s more than curious to see the way he fights now, how his style has adapted to suit his handicap; if there is one thing she’s sure of when it comes to this new Molly, it’s that he refuses to allow anything to get in his way, refuses to cow himself before anyone because of his physical impediment. 

Surprisingly, they’re not interrupted once in that morning. Cree does not make an appearance, though Yasha does hear people milling about outside, speaking in soft vowels that cannot penetrate the heavy curtaining of Molly’s tent, and she cannot help but wonder what Lucien’s people are thinking. What the _Nein_ are thinking. 

While she’s considering these things, Molly comes up behind her, resting a hand on her forearm. “Thank you,” he says in his think, unfamiliar accent, and then, with a whirl of his dark, ostentatious cape, heads towards the exit. Regardless of what he calls himself, it seems he’s ever the dramatic one. Immediately, Yasha follows at his heels. 

At the entryway, she’s barely able to step out. The other tiefling – the one with the terrible, void-like eyes – has stopped him, and they’re speaking together in Infernal. She’s never tried to understand the language; Molly never really spoke it at all, considering that he had no one to speak _to_ , at the carnival, but they and sound to be in intense conversation, and more than one glance is flung her way.

Eventually, it is Molly who breaks first. “Yasha is beyond your reproach, Tyffial. You don’t need to worry.” It doesn’t sound like a reprimand, and, much to her surprise, Tyffial seems congenially unbothered, even going so far as to make a short, curt bow of the head.

“Understood. Welcome, then, Yasha, to the Tomb Takers.” And without another word, he turns and continues onward, leaving her utterly bewildered in his wake.

Molly doesn’t seem to notice, following a few steps after Tyffial, and Yasha, rededicated as she is to her purpose after that morning’s success, continues to trail him, more nervous about facing the rest of the Nein than she is about anything else.

By the looks on their faces as she crest the slope, she’s right to be concerned. Beau’s glower is darker than a storm cloud, her eyes electric as the lightning that she sometimes wields upon her fists. The subconscious thought that she is rather striking like that is blasted out of her mind by the surprise whirlwind of motion that is Jester, rounding on her. Molly curved away at some point while Yasha was – she blushes furiously – _daydreaming_ – about…well, she’s no longer following him, and no longer protected by his presence. Even as Jester takes her hand, Yasha cannot help but track him with her gaze, heart aching to keep him in her sights.

“Yasha!” she cries, tugging her towards the group. “Oh my gods! We didn’t know what to think! Are you okay? Is everything okay? Caduceus won’t tell us _anything_ , and –“

“If you don’t fucking _say something_ , I’m going to go up to that _smug mother-fucker_ wearing his _stolen mother-fucking_ face and –“

“Let Yasha talk!” Nott practically screams out over their colliding, crescendoing tirades. “Everyone has been bickering all night while Caduceus said _squat_ , so why don’t we all just sit down and _listen_ so you can calm down!”

 _Yes_ , Yasha thinks as they all finally calm down. _This is definitely a mother._

A quick glance around reveals that the various members of the Tomb Takers who are milling around are definitely watching them, but she draws into their little circle anyways, where they all finally hush up enough for her to speak. “Well, um, I guess, what do you want to know?”

It’s Caleb who takes the initiative. “He is not Molly.” It’s not a question, per say, but it is a statement looking for confirmation that Yasha isn’t sure she can provide, not considering the things she’s come to believe, the things that she’s heard from him, and experienced.

Yasha hesitates. “Well…Um, I guess, that is up to your perspective.”

The group erupts again, except Caduceus who is watching her carefully, his knowing look so penetrating that it feels almost like he can see under her skin. She’s not entirely sure how long the moment lasts, but realizes too late that the other have finally settled, when she feels their eyes upon her.

“What is it that the two of you know?” Fjord asks finally, sounding a mild bit exasperated. “He’s our friend too, Yasha.”

Then, she feels guilty. She knows he doesn’t mean to hurt her, but the emotion is there anyways, “I can’t tell you,” she says. “It’s not for me to say.”

Jester groans and stomps off, but Beau’s cold fury doesn’t deviate. Fjord only utters “Fair enough.” She’s grateful at least for Nott and Caleb who seem to understand something of why she just…can’t. Overwhelmed, Yash pushes her face into her hands. Nothing is ever easy.

A throat clears and they all look over instantly; it’s Tyffial, waiting with serene patience. “Lucien would like to see you. All of you.”

That, more than anything else, shuts them up.

The rest of the Tomb Takers are gathered a little ways away around a smoldering fire. There are more of them than first Yasha thought. Various ages and races, there seems to be little continuity between them, save that they all wear similar clothes; black, in varying degrees of ragged and worn, each with a shoulder cloak like Molly’s, and small red eyes embroidered over the heart.

“Yasha,” Molly beckons to her, a slender hand outstretched invitingly, and she goes to him without hesitation as he directs her to stand by his side. Once she is there, shifting a little uncomfortably, despite how _right_ it feels to be beside him, he addresses the crowd.

“The Mighty Nein.” He gestures to the rest of people surrounding them. “My Tomb Takers. My Tomb Takers, the Mighty Nein.” Both groups share a surveying glance at one another, sizing up their strengths and weaknesses. It’s strange to feel, suddenly, like she belongs with neither. “These are all very competent individuals and we are fortunate to be united, considering the situation.” A low murmur goes out between the Tomb Takers. “If they are amendable, they will travel with us, new members of your venerable Order. A belated invitation, as my prior situation did not lend me to offering such a boon before.” And then, he reaches for her, his hand landing securely on her forearm. “This is my Yasha. She is already one of you.”

A lump forms in her throat, and she eyes the Nein for their reactions, swallowing hard as they stare equally _hard_.

“As to the rest of you,” he turns to address the Nein once more. “You are more than welcome to join my Tomb Takers as Yasha has. I know that each of you brings your own abilities, and each of you, your own agendas, of course. We will be moving on tomorrow,” he announces, and a wave of energy goes through the assembled Tomb Takers. “You have until then to make your decision. Zoran.”

A female half elf steps up, her skin a beautiful charcoal, and her eyes an unsettlingly bright amber. “Yes, Lucien?”

“Be sure the Nein are given a tent and treated equally among you regardless of their decision.”

Yasha’s face feels warm even in the cool breeze of the oncoming winter, and her stomach clenches unhappily. For a moment, it seems that he’s about to dismiss them, but Cree steps forward.

“You have received further instruction then, Lucien? You know the path?”

He smiles, a rakish, dangerous thing.

“I do, Cree. Every day, we come closer. Every day is a day nearer to victory.”

They do disperse then, leaving Yasha and the Nein where they stand, absent of the energy that surges between every member of Lucien’s…of the Tomb Takers. She feels like a statue. She feels like she’s made of stone, like her feet are encased it it, like it’s crawling up her body, keeping her there inch by inch.

There isn’t a shred of Molly in those words, no matter how hard Yasha believes, and accusatory gaze of the Nein does little to ease her rebounding worries.


	3. For The Ashes Of His Fathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year's Eve

3\. For The Ashes Of His Fathers

Lucien is frustratingly hard to read. He stares at her a lot, the weight of his gaze something that she’s begun to notice with rather alarming frequency. She doesn’t like _anything_ about the way things have gone since they were captured - okay, so it’s not like they’re prisoners or anything, but _still_ \- and his constant observation tops the list. Between gazing inscrutably at she and Yasha, Beau thinks, all of Lucien’s extra time must be used up, that is, until she notices that all the rest of time that he isn’t staring at them, he’s staring at Caleb. That and, Yasha spends her nights in his tent. That hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice, not even the Tomb Takers, though, she’s pretty sure that the Nein are the only ones who don’t think they’re boning. 

Yasha is frustrating too. She’s made her position more than clear, calling him Molly all of the time, instead of Lucien, puppying after him like the old days, refusing - like Caduceus - to tell them anything of substance. 

(Privately, Beau is starting to feel like a piss-poor expositor.) 

She’s never liked being stared at. She hates feeling exposed by it, especially when it’s impossible to see anything deeper beyond Lucien’s all too well put together facade. No one is _that_ good at hiding what they’re thinking, and it’s just one more thing that keeps her from believing in Yasha’s little delusion, that this...this body stealer is actually their Mollymauk. The Mollymauk who _died_ for her. Molly definitely wasn’t that good.

Maybe it’s a bit hypocritical, but she knows he’s felt her own stare just as often, though he never seems thrown by it. Not even a little bit. 

That’s probably what Beau hates the most. 

She tries not to think about how much it irks her, how easily he gets under her skin. How quickly Yasha is to give her sanity - her loyalty! - over to someone who isn’t even _trying_ to be an imposter. When he’d said that Yasha was already a Tomb Taker, when she looked to Yasha, saw her alabaster skin flush, the slight tick of her clenching jaw…

The betrayal _burned_. It burned worse than anything. She hasn’t spoken to Yasha since, which Jester says is being unfair (and that burns, too, though for different reasons), but Beau can hardly bring herself to even look at her friend, can hardly even bring herself to _call_ Yasha a friend (and that _is_ being unfair, but Beau furiously stomps out the little yearning voice in her head that’s whispering it). 

The world is falling apart. The least her friends can do is stick together. 

_“No,”_ she said when they circled up after Lucien’s declaration that they are welcome to join the Tomb Takers, welcome to travel with them on their journey. _“No way in the fucking hells. I’m not joining his freaky little cult.”_

And yet, here they are. And here she is.

They spend most of their days walking. The weather is steadily growing worse and Beau finds that she doesn’t feel like making conversation, even with those people with whom she is on speaking terms. Lucien tries to be one of those people, at first. In a (in her opinion, frankly garish) show of goodwill, he steps forward, offering her the hilt of his sword. “I apologize for the other day. I only meant to explain myself. I perhaps acted…insensitively.”

She looks down at the sword, a sneer of disgust on her face. “What, you offering to let me kill you?” A brow quirks, but he doesn’t respond. “Keep your fucking sword. I don’t need it. And,” she adds, “You can keep your fucking apologies, too.” She pointedly misses whatever expression flits across his face (she can’t bear to see his blank looks on Molly’s features), turning and walking away, her back to him in dismissal. 

He doesn’t try again after that.

Yasha has withdrawn from them, spending most of her time with Lucien, who seems to treat her well enough, at least, and, while she knows that a big part of that is her fault, it doesn’t make her feel any better about it. Somehow, it only incenses her more. Their surroundings don’t get any more familiar as they continue south, even though an itch is growing beneath her skin that tells her that she _should_. 

No one else mentions anything, so Beau doesn’t either, turning her attention from what she can’t control to maybe what she can. Observing, as seemingly casually as possible, their new _leader_ , Lucien. 

He walks with different people each day, save for Yasha, who follows him like a shadow, chatting with different people amiably, as though he’s checking in with them, as though he’s actually friendly. ( _Maybe he is_ , the voice whispers again. _Maybe you just don’t want to believe it._ Except that that’s _not_ true. It _isn’t._ She refuses to let it be.) So she keeps watching him, sees how he helps set up camp - they don’t always put up the tents, only when Lucien says that they are staying someplace for a while (Which, by the way, no one ever questions), though there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why. He works alongside everyone equally and they all address him with just as familiar a nature, and yet, they listen to him unquestioningly, regardless of what it is he asks them to do. Just the same, they bring him suggestions, or information, and he often takes what they say into consideration and implements it. All things considered, he runs his little cult efficiently. A small part of Beau is actually impressed. 

(A small part of Beau is reminded of the Nein.)

It enrages her, though that anger is a quietly smoldering flame and not an uncontrollable blaze. How is it, she can’t help but contemplate, that the person she should (and does) rightfully hate for taking away her friend, isn’t a terrible person? How is it that this person that Molly fears with all his being is actually decent? Is actually amiable? Kind, even?

There has to be something that she’s not seeing. There just has to be.

They’re a week away from the camp where they’d met when she notices it.

At first, she thinks that it’s nothing. Lucien watches them all a lot, Caleb included, but usually, there’s not a shred of emotion on his face. That, partially, has been a reason that Beau struggles to understand how Yasha managed to convince herself that it’s Molly, because Molly was all emotion, all the time. So, when he breaks that impassive expression and she catches a real and true glare in Caleb’s direction, Beau finally feels as though she’s won. Something bitter sparks in her. Something poisonous and gleeful. It’s awful, really, to find herself vindicated, because it means breaking Yasha’s heart, and the group’s spirit, but she’s been _so sure_ that it can’t be him, and she lets it simmer inside, warming her.

(The little voice cries out in pain as it’s snuffed.)

Like a hawk, she watches him, and when she’s not watching him, she’s watching Caleb.

They don’t interact that often, really. Lucien holds himself a little away from the Nein most days, discounting Yasha, that is, but occasionally, he walks beside them, speaking congenially. Tentatively, Jester has made conversation and, finding it well received, blossomed into a version of her that’s closer to her usually, energetic self. Fjord, perhaps a bit more cautiously, engages with him, too. Nott is her usual self, volatile on a good day, and Caduceus, well...he’s different, never having known the person wearing Molly’s face by any other way except as he is now. And then, there’s Caleb. 

It takes three days for Beau to gather enough evidence to sense a pattern emerging, if it can at all be called that. Some days, Lucien is downright sweet to Caleb, and then, on others, he either blatantly ignores him, or snips disingenuously, walking in Caleb’s vicinity with a haughty grace, tail flicking from beneath his black robes. She can’t be sure, but Beau is almost positive that the only one who really notices, aside from Caleb, on the receiving end of it all, is, of course, Yasha.

The day Beau catches Yasha watching a particularly viperous, interaction between the two (one that’s meant to be private, but then, neither Yasha nor Beau have let Lucien out of their sight recently), the other woman notices and turns away, her cheeks colouring, and the fight within Beau rises again. She knows better than to try anything in present company; there are too many Tomb Takers for them to be successful if she tried taking Lucien out, and a small part of her, a part that aches more than hurts, is nervous that the Nein might not back her if she does.

But getting Yasha alone is a challenge, especially since they’ve stopped talking.

Late into the impenetrable darkness of the post-Calamity sky, she catches sight of Yasha approaching the fresh water bucket that they keep in the center of the camp. A ways off, a few Tomb Takers are walking patrol. One yawns.

Quiet, panther-like, Beau makes her way over.

“What the fuck was that about earlier?” she asks, her tone quietly aggressive. “Since when do we take sides? We came back for you, Yasha. We stood by you, even though we couldn’t be sure that you hadn’t turned on us. We _never_ gave up on you. Not once. What the _fuck_ , Yasha? He’s always mean to Caleb, and don’t fucking tell me that you haven’t noticed, because I _know_ , you saw. And you just ignored it. Completely. Like, I was willing to understand. You think he’s Molly. I get it. You love him. He’s the other half of your soul or something, and he died and you weren’t there to save him and now this asshole is wearing his face and you just can’t help yourself, can you? And yeah, Molly could be mean, but the way Lucien treats Caleb. Yasha, you’ve _got_ to see it. You _have_ to. Don’t tell me that you don’t. He’s _not_ Molly. No matter how much you fucking want him to be. No matter how much we all fucking wish he was. He’s not. He’s _not._ ”

Yasha, even in the shadowy night, is obviously pallid. “You don’t understand,” she starts to say, but with the first words, Beau’s temper is hotter than the sun.

“Fuck you! Just fucking _fuck_ you!” She hisses, her voice rising more than she means. “How can you even say that? How can you fucking betray Caleb like that? Betray your _friends?_ How can I understand you when you won’t even tell us what he fucking said to you?”

To her credit, Yasha looks positively stricken, and that small, feeble voice inside Beau whimpers knowing the pain she’s caused with her vindictive accusations. 

“I’m sorry.” Yasha turns her face away from the pale light of the moon.

_(You’re making her sad, you bitch!)_

Beau grits her teeth, jaw quivering. “You’re sorry? You’re _sorry?”_ She shakes her head, and the stinging burn of tears starts in her eyes. She pushes it back, full of fury. “Don’t give me that shit. Fuck you.” Without waiting for Yasha to respond, Beau turns her back and walks away.

She’ll just stay closer to Caleb, from now on. She’ll protect him. ( _Like you couldn’t protect Molly.)_

That night, laying on the frozen ground, only a blanket beneath them and a fur above them, as there have been no tents raised this night, not even Lucien’s, Beau rolls to face Caleb, who is laying on his back, staring up at the sky.

It’s been a while since she really considered him. Yes, she spent all day thinking about him, but not about _him_. Not really. All she’s really done lately is think about Lucien, (And Molly.) and now Caleb is the perfect – _excuse, he’s an excuse for you to be pissed. That’s all. You don’t really give a shit that Lucien’s been a shit to him, do you?_

“I do!” she whispers to herself urgently. Even the smallest sound, however, rousts Caleb from whatever far away place he’d slipped to in the absence of sleep. Fjord snuffles and rolls over with a snore, and the others don’t so much as twitch. Not even Caduceus.

“What did you say?” he asks, the quiet timbre of his tone softening his accent the slightest bit, and Beau is suddenly struck with the thought that it’s been a long time since she really talked with him. Since she really said anything of substance to any of them that isn’t bitching and moaning, even before they met with the Tomb Takers. In the flickering of the firelight, his eyes are a strange coppery colour, flecked with that impossibly ice blue, and vividly, the memory burst across her vision.

She’d been watching him when he fell off the cliff all those weeks ago; his eyes were wide then, wide with fear, not haunted in the way he’d been when Ikithon said his name, but true, irrational terror as the ground fell away and he dropped, her hand reaching out for him and grasping only air. The terrible snap that followed...

“Beauregard?” he asks again, shaking her from the recollection with a gasp. Beneath her ribcage, her heart is pounding frantically. “What is it?”

For an instant, all the pent up rage, all her bright, furious anger dissipates, and she feels the onset of tears before gritting her teeth for the second time that night. “I don’t like that he treats you like shit,” she says, finally. And she does, truly mean it.

Caleb’s brow furrows, the lines above the bridge of his nose deepening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.”

The confused look fades away, and for a moment, she thinks he might say something, but he only rolls over again, his back to her.

This time, she can’t keep the tears from spilling.

“Goodnight, Beauregard.” His voice is so soft, it’s almost lost on the tremulous breeze, tentative and…apologetic?...as it is.

Before she goes to sleep, Beau promises herself that tomorrow, she’ll make an effort again. She’s come so far, and she doesn’t want to regress now. If the end of the freaking world wasn’t enough to set her back, Lucien and his cruelties don’t have to either.

The next morning, she sticks to her guns, buddies up to Caleb, sending glares at Lucien whenever she can feel his glance on them. He must get the picture, because he doesn’t speak to any of them at all that day, and only when it’s much, much later does Beau realize that Yasha might have said something. For all that Lucien watches them almost constantly throughout the day, Yasha doesn’t look at her even once. 

Long past frustration, the complacency is starting to eat away at Beau, and the isolation. Though Caleb talks to her more that day than he has in the past weeks, she still feels so very, very alone. Beau has always been good at feeling alone, even when the people she claims to love and care for, and who are supposed to love and care for her back, surround her twenty-four/seven. Her strongest suit has always been pushing people away.

Always.

At dinner, Caleb leans over, a half-eaten piece of jerked meat in his hand. “I am not a child. I can take care of myself.” He sounds earnest, not offended or reprimanding, but still feels as though he’s stuck a dagger in her side. Even so, she gives him a curt nod and slides a little ways away and busies herself with taking a swig from the waterskin at her side, all the while wishing for a bottle of her family’s wine – either to drink or to shatter on the ground, she doesn’t particularly give a damn.

A pale, scarred hand is suddenly thrust into her vision; reluctantly, Beau takes the offered meat from Caleb, a peace offering accepted, but it does little to soothe her wound up emotions. She’s not sure that anything can sufficiently do that except getting away from Lucien, from the Tomb Takers, and from the desolate place the world has become.

She lifts her chin anyways, giving a curt nod, which Caleb returns, and they go back to eating in relative silence. Across the way, Fjord and Jester sit close, their heads knocked together as they whisper back and forth, apparently deep in whatever serious conversation is being had. Caduceus holds his bone flute in his hands, just looking absently at it, lost in thought. His mind is impossible to fathom; Beau has ceased trying.

They were all so close once and everything had unraveled so fast. What will it take to get there again?

A miracle.

It will take a miracle.

Several days later, Lucien calls a halt to their journey, and the tents go up once more. There’s frost on the ground, and the sky is clear and dark, the moon shining brightly above them like some perverted testament to Mollymauk. Beau decides that she doesn’t like how he looks in the moonlight. Lucien is steely silver and gunmetal grey and sharp in a way that Molly never seemed. As they’re setting up camp, Beau dutifully keeps her distance from Caleb, though her eye doesn’t really stray from him.

She still sets up her bedroll next to his in the tent that they share. To his credit, he gives a little smile and doesn’t stop her. Every few days, Caduceus, Jester, or Cree has worked on attempting to heal him further, and sometimes, it seems to work. Other times, less so. Caleb still hobbles about a little bit, frequently complaining of stiffness, but he no longer makes pained faces when his foot impacts the ground too hard. Something good in an unending period of bad.

Sometimes, too, Caduceus disappears; Beau saw him once, coming out of Lucien’s tent, but he still won’t explain why he’s needed there, though it leaves her suspicious.

(Asking Yasha isn’t even an option.)

That night, when she’s trying to drown out the sound of Caduceus snoring by spiraling through her thoughts, she hears a slight rustle. Buried beneath her covers, she looks to her peripherals and sees a sliver of firelight, the flap of the tent held open, the inky black of leather boots, shining in the light, and a dark figure. Another rustle, from beside her. Caleb.

He leaves his bedroll, walking to the flap of the tent, where the figure steps aside to let him pass. Straining with all her might, Beau listens.

“-do you want this time?” Caleb is asking.

“You know what I want.”

Lucien. Beau is suddenly frozen in place, her heart pounding rapidly away in her chest.

“I don’t understand you. I don’t understand you at all.”

A wry, lifeless chuckle. “I don’t understand me either. I came to tell you what I feel.”

“Feel?” There’s skepticism in the word. “You barely tolerate me since last we spoke. I know how you feel, that I am worthless here, a wizard in a world where magic is waning, baggage that only slows your progress, I don’t need to hear you say it to – “

“You are driving me mad. Slowly. I think of nothing but you.” Against her will, Beau’s eyebrows practically shoot to her hairline. There is a long, heavy pause. A long, heavy, terrible pause. “I don’t understand _why_ , and it is driving me wild with confusion, but you are…”

Through the faint light of the fire, filtering through the tent’s canvas, Beau see’s Lucien reach out towards Caleb’s face, sees Caleb take a step back. Lucien’s hand hangs in the air.

“…You are maddening. And beautiful. I want to…” For a moment, the language dissipates from common into something that isn’t Infernal either, Beau’s pretty sure, considering she’s heard it often enough from Jester. Regardless, the inflection makes it sound like a swear. “I want to…keep you. _Protect_ you. I want you safe.”

“That is not what you said you wanted before.”

(And _when_ was that? Another nighttime conversation? Once after she’d fallen into an uneasy sleep?)

“You misunderstand,” Lucien’s voice is still a whisper, but his frustration makes it sound harsh. “My wants haven’t changed. They are all the same. I only…are feelings memories? Can you remember a feeling, without remembering the context?”

“I don’t know.” Caleb’s voice is low, hesitant, but any fear is gone out of it. 

“I remember the feel of you, now.” The hand reaches out again, and Beau guesses that that impossibly gentle finger brushes aside a lock of hair, from the motion she can see in the shadow. “A fire in my heart. A fire in my soul.”

“You never had me. _He_ never had me.” Caleb’s retort lacks bite, despite the emphasis. “Not in that or any other way.”

“I _want_ you. By my side. In my heart.” The earnestness is as disgusting to Beau as the simpering words of Ikithon at the Sanatorium. Lucien takes a step forward. “Beneath my hands... In my bed.”

It’s all Beau can do not to fly from her bed roll and out of the tent, not to wrap her extremely dangerous hands around his slender lavender neck and throttle the life out of him. It’s all she can do to stay quiet and still. It’s all she can do not to gnash her teeth and yell.

Caleb’s shadow wavers on the backstep, and then stops moving.

“Prove to me you remember what you feel. Prove it to me.”

 _No, Caleb!_ She wants to shout. _What the fuck are you thinking?!_

“And then?”

“And then we talk.”

Once more, Lucien raises his hand, and this time, she thinks that it lands on Caleb’s cheek. He doesn’t even flinch. In suspended animation, they simply stand like that, breathing. The length of time is indeterminate, but it’s driving _Beau_ wild. Just when she thinks that they’ll stay locked in a contested gaze forever, Lucien abruptly walks away, no grace, no decorum, no lingering looks. No nothing. And then it is Caleb alone who remains there, stationary as if time has stopped.

Feeling rather strange, in a place between shameful voyeur and betrayed best friend, Beau hides her head beneath the covers before Caleb can return to the tent and witness the evidence of her transgression. 

(Besides. She doesn’t want to look at him anyways. Looking at him now will make her sick.)

The next day, she watches him carefully, but it’s nearly impossible to keep him in sight all day long. Still, she tries valiantly. And fails. That night, long after the others are asleep, long after she’s pretended to fall into drowsy slumber, Beau hears the telltale sound of Caleb making to leave. She waits, just long enough that he won’t notice her following, and sneaks to the flap of the tent, watching him between the seam of loose canvas as he makes his way right towards Lucien’s tent. 

There’s no one outside guarding it, and quiet as a whisper in the night, he slips inside. 

Beau doesn’t know what she expected. Whatever it was, she did nothing, said nothing all the day long, and so, the annoying voice in her head reminds her, she has no right to complain. When she turns back to the interior of the tent, Caduceus is sitting up a little, watching her in his quiet, knowing way. 

Neither says a word and Beau climbs into her bedroll once more and lays awake quietly fuming for too long to gauge. 

Nothing comes to a head until a few days later. They’re on the trail, walking, aimlessly to Beau’s impression, though the Tomb Takers all seem confident in Lucien’s leadership towards this…’city’ that they’re so dedicatedly seeking on this pilgrimage. 

Caleb hikes up to her, his gait uneven, as she ever presses ahead, leaving the rest behind so that she can walk along. “Beauregard, wait a moment, please.” 

She forges ahead, bound and determined that he’ll suffer her as much as she’s had to suffer all of them. Behind her, she hears Nott call out “That wasn’t very nice!” And, though she can’t actually parse what they’re saying, hears Jester speaking too, and the uncomfortably hot shameful feeling wells up in her stomach and the blood is pounding loudly in her ears _shame shame shame shame shame sha-_

A sharp, stinging sensation erupts across the side of her cheek, and she feels a slice of thin, dribbling warmth run down her skin in rivulets. Shock overtakes her and she lifts her hand to the source, drawing it away to see blood, bright as the moon that night when the world ended. 

Taken so completely off her guard, Beau looks around, bewildered, before another arrow wizzes through the air, embedding itself in her thigh. She gives a shout as the pain finally hits her, blossoming anew now, and whirls her staff from her across her shoulders and into her strong, competent hands, slick with blood. For all she’s been on guard around Lucien, she’s out of practice in real combat. 

She hadn’t anticipated an ambush. 

No one had. 

More arrows fly out of the forest above them like dark, dangerous birds, biting into flesh easily, stinging and sluggish, and, not long after the volley, the first of their assailants appears. She leaps gracefully from her vantage point, landing solidly on the ground, engaging the first person she sees. It’s one of the Tomb Takers, but Caleb is quicker on the draw and what little magic he is still able to conjure flies to his fingertips and out towards the burly woman. But Beau doesn’t pay much attention after that, as more attackers spring from the hidden places in the underbrush and from the outcropping above. From her peripherals, she almost sees Jester moving in tandem with her, but she’s too busy thinking about the battle, and her first punches are imbued with all the power of her Ki. Livid with anger, the face she sees before her is erroneously Lucien’s. She strikes hard and fast, her fists flying along like lightning, her fury in each hit she lands and every blow she takes, moving almost thoughtlessly through the battle as she attacks on instinct more than with precision or intention. More foes rush her way, and she works through them, stunning one here, pummeling another there, again and again, despite the stabs and cuts and burns that litter her body, summoning that energy within her to move faster, to stand her ground, punching her way from the northern end of the rudimentary path towards the rocky incline of the mountainous hillside.

Momentarily, there’s no one in her path, though she sees movement from above, but there’s a swift motion in her peripherals, and she takes a second to look, catching her breath and giving into the extent of her wounds. It’s Lucien, in his dark shoulder cape, which cuts the air around him like a raven’s wing, his glowing swords slicing through the opponent before him. He’s bleeding across the cheek, and his teeth are bared and he’s hissing something that almost hurts to hear, despite its incomprehensibility. He’s impressive; strangely, his style is different that she remembers, more practiced, to be certain, fluid and graceful, but low to the ground, never lifting his arms above his head.

Rock crumbles down from above, diverting her attention back to the goal at hand, and she continues the climb, calling on her Ki again and again to get herself to a decent vantage point more quickly. A hooded figure looms above her, taking pot shots at those below, and she grits her teeth against the pain to vault herself at another hand hold, eventually hauling herself onto the outcropping above.

She bolts at him, throwing some ninja stars as she practically flies through the air, lands a punch on his solar plexus, and takes her stance, centering herself in her anger, waiting to retaliate. She doesn’t wait long. The hood has fallen off, revealing an elf of indeterminate age and thin, pale, almost translucently white, skin. A scattered lightening bolt of scars shatter across his face, leaving his mouth a permanent grimace. More swiftly that she anticipates he sweeps two swords off from his back and slashes down at her, and she only brings her bo-staff up just in time to block. They leap apart, circle, and the dance starts again. She takes a jab to the stomach, lands a hit to the back of his leg, nearly buckling him, but he ducks a few more hits and catches her in a strong double slash across the back that shakes the breath from her lungs. She’s waning, lagging, but so is he, so she ignores it. Ignores the aching pulse of blood as it streams from her wounds, the stabbing sting of each its own thrumming reminder. Redoubling her efforts she springs forward again, but the adrenaline is running out, and for every hit she lands, he catches her with the edge of his blades. She’s reckless, furious, and she doesn’t care. She lifts her head from hanging and forces her gaze on his. There’s blood dripping from his chin, stark vermillion against his pallid skin, and she can see it in his eyes, the fatigue…

She can take him.

She _knows_ she can.

Swinging for all she’s worth, desperate to land even one more punch – she’s _so_ close, she can practically taste it against the metallic taint of copper in her mouth – Beau’s fist thrusts out and into the empty air before her. A miss. Briefly, her eyes widen in horror. She’s exhausted, spent utterly in her reckless rage, unthinking as she’d let out all her jumbled and tortured emotions wastefully, idiotically too soon, and now here she is. She’s bleeding from more places than she can count, and she hasn’t been this terrified of dying in combat since the day they battle Obann’s monstrous punished form. Not even the day the world ended was she this sure that it would be her last. And yet this...this anti-climactic battle with a foe whose just as desperate as she, a no one...this will be the end of her. Somewhere, in the commotion, she hears Nott shrieking and then, just as her attention is swayed, the elf strikes out, catching her across the stomach with the tip of one sword and she curls forward, reeling, vision swimming in and out, sparks of black and light flashing distractingly. The battle rages somewhere below them, swords clanging, the sound of flesh rending, but above, on the outcropping, there is only Beau and the elf, watching her with eyes gleaming as his arm is still curving back from the swing. She clutches at her staff, makes to strike – anything is better than nothing. 

Dairon’s words whisper in her mind. _Don’t die._

Too late.

The swing goes wide. She tries to dart forward with her fit, dropping the bo-staff in the process; even sluggish as he is, the elf pulls away just in time. She’s well and truly slowed, only reflexively gripping her staff, fingers slipping, shaking, her legs tremoring, dropping to one knee. Even the sound of the battle is numb, her ears ringing like a thousand incessant bells. She looks up from her red-painted abdomen at the grinning, bloodied face her opponent, and waits to die.

With a vengeance, relish in his smile, he thrusts the sword down.

A shiver goes through Beau – _this is it,_ she thinks, the shadow of death upon her - and then as cold steel glints bright and cold, screaming towards her, a dark shape coalesces in its path, the shadows rushing out from around it, and solidifies just in time for the blade to make contact, the force of its trajectory striking swift and true.

Beau falters.

There is a strangled, awful, unforgettable sound, and the Elf falls limp to the ground, a glimmering scimitar embedded in his side.

Beau breathes for the first time in what feels like an eon. Her senses are still misted, but there’s a solid body in front of her (though, how it got there, she’s not entirely sure), and out of its back a blood slick blade protrudes.

A blade meant for her.

The figure staggers as it turns, and the world stops.

“ _MOLLY!_ ” She screams his name as he drops to his knees, as he puts his hands to where the blade is thrust into his stomach, watching the place bloom with new blood.

It’s happening again, it’s happening. _All_. _Over. Again._

 _Not again_ , _no, no, no, no, no, no, no._

With a sudden rush of adrenaline, Beau sinks fully to the ground beside him, hauling him into her lap before he can collapse to the ground. Blood gurgles from his lips, flecking across his cheek as he coughs.

“Molly, Molly, Molly no, oh fuck, oh gods, fuck, fuck _, fuck!_ ”

Her lap is warm with his blood and his eyelids are fluttering, but he’s still looking up at her with those inscrutably red eyes of his, glassy with sightlessness and all she sees is the dark, terrible wilderness of the Glory Run Road, light swirls of snow falling around them like ash.

He’s dead.

He’s dead because of her.

 _It’s always your fucking fault. You did this. You’re the reason Molly’s dead. It’s you, it’s always been you. You’re poison. You may as well be the blade in his chest, you may as well be Lorenzo. You ruin_ everything _, you always fucking do, you_ always _do._

“Beauregard.” Something lands on her shoulder, startling her out of the flashback, and Cree’s bright golden eyes stare into her own urgently.

“I k-I killed him,” she stammers, the words falling from her lips thoughtlessly. “I killed him, oh gods, I killed h-“

“Beauregard!” A paw catches her hard across the face, and the shock of it is enough to bring her back from the edge. “He is not dead. Call for your friends, the healers. He is _not_ dead, and he _will not die_. I assure you of that. Let me take him. I will help.”

There’s something reassuring in the way that she speaks, her accent soft and her voice a low rumble. It’s a soothing force, fighting against the newest thought that’s sprung to Beau’s mind: healing isn’t quite as easy as it used to be. No magic is. Caduceus and Jester together could barely handle Caleb’s leg, and this…she looks down at the scarlet blanket that covers them.

This is so much worse.

She clings harder, unable to bring herself to comply.

Snarling, Cree ignores her and looks up. “Clay! Lavorre! Nydoorin!”

Only then does Beau notice that the battle is over, that the Nein and the Tomb Takers have won, because there is Jester, scrambling up the side of the outcropping, Yasha hot on her heels, and Caduceus and the others trailing behind.

A tightness grips her lungs, and her breathing comes harsh and quick.

His eyes are unfocused and vague.

He’s slipping away.

Bitterly, Beau sobs, shutting her eyes and willing away the sight. An awful squelching is followed by a sharp, huffing breath and a strangled cry, and she winces, gritting her teeth as hot tears roll uncontrollably down her cheeks.

The body in her lap stills.

From behind her closed eyes, a brilliant, white light blooms, bursts, explodes and when she opens them, the sword is gone, and the ragged edges of the wound are closed, though his armor and clothing are still rent and he’s completely doused in blood. But he’s breathing more evenly.

He’s _breathing_.

Cree is bracketed by her friends, Caduceus in the center, Yasha and Jester on either side. A hand lands on her shoulder and she feels the ache of slight healing draining into her from Fjord’s touch.

“Beau,” Caduceus says, his voice even and gentle. “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”

For the first time in a long time, she wills herself to believe it, clutching at Molly’s battered form for lack of anything else to ground her, and slowly, allows herself to slip away to meet him in the dark of unconsciousness.


	4. And the Temples of His Gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter contains a brief NSFW selection of paragraphs of the mature rating.

4\. And The Temples Of His Gods

Caleb sits with his eyes closed. A pounding headache resounds behind his eyes, and there is still a stinging burn across his cheek, and his leg – _his damned leg_ – is throbbing with pressure where he has it tucked beneath him. There’s a crick in his back to boot, but that’s his own doing, hunched as he is from exhaustion and terror alike, reaching forward to clasp the warm, twitching hand within his own. 

It’s _his_ hand, of course. (Caleb still isn’t sure _what_ to call him.) As if Caleb would be holding any other hand with such reverence in this moment. Beau is still resting in another tent; she’d woken up once, only to promptly have a break down over the fact that she couldn’t ‘see Molly’ anywhere – and _oh_ , but had _that_ been a surprise, to hear her calling him that name so readily after the truly detestable way she’d been behaving. (Though it wasn’t as if anyone was going to blame her, least of all Caleb.)

Outside the tent, Yasha stands guard, Magician’s Judge staked into the ground before her, ready to battle anyone who may attempt to pass that isn’t a cleric. They’ve been on rotation since the battle ended, helping any of those wounded, including Beau, and most significantly _him_. 

When Cree asked if he was going to stay at Lucien’s side or not…well, he knew what she thought of him already, that she must have spied him leaving their tent that night, watched him with disgust as he slipped into _his_. 

At the time, Caleb had been calling him ‘Lucien’. Now though, after that night, Caleb’s not sure _what_ to call him, much less who he truly is. 

The interior of the tent, that night, was smoky with incense, so much that it almost burned his lungs to breathe, and it was difficult to see through the haze, but for the two glowing embers of Lucien’s eyes, watching him expectantly. 

“You came.” 

“You proved yourself.” 

The feel of Lucien’s lips on his forehead, the whispering kiss that he’d left there as lasting as a brand. Caleb recalled the way he’d had to keep his hand from rising to touch the place as the unwavering gaze beheld him. 

“Did I?” 

“Yasha was not there that day. You did not ask the others, and even if you had, none would have told you, I am sure.” There was only one answer to the conundrum. “You remembered it of your own ability. I asked you to prove yourself, and you did.” 

He rose from the chair then, strode forward into the dim lanternlight and reached out to Caleb, caressing his cheek with utter tenderness. “All I ask is that we talk.” 

“And that is all I promised you.” 

And of course, Lucien had abided. 

Unlike that night, he lays quite still on the bed of furs, languishing in his half-healed state. Though Lucien – or whomever – was far less animated than Molly had been, his tail was still wont to lash about and his ears where constantly twitching at the slightest sound, and his graceful, slender fingers had played at holding Caleb’s hand, stroking the skin between his knuckles and along the lines of his palm as they’d talked; almost quietly subdued, it was a strange contrast to the passionate, frustrated earnestness of that night prior, but now, he is near completely still, only the slight rise and fall of his chest, the occasionally muscle contraction of the hand he’s holding a signifier that he still carries a vestige of life within him. 

All the while, Caleb does his best not to look at the mutilated torso; the worst parts aren’t even the newest wound, the gouged gaping mess of his abdomen that is already healing over in a pale lavender scar. No, the worse part is the part that hadn’t shocked Caduceus, Cree, or Yasha in the slightest, the thin, scarred skin healed over the ravaged bone terrain of his sternum. 

Every time he thinks about it, he can hear the sickening fractured cracks as Lorenzo had taken the blade and _twisted_ , splintering the bone apart. It’s a terrible reminder, and he doesn’t like it, and yet, every three minutes (he’s kept count), he looks up at it, unable to look away from the physical reminder that this person was once Mollymauk Tealeaf, had not once, but nearly twice given away his life for Beau, and without a single complaint. 

It makes the whole thing terrifyingly real in a way Caleb isn’t yet ready to contemplate.

So he distracts himself by thinking back to their conversation two nights ago, thinking about the feel of his hand as he’d grasped Caleb’s leading him back into the sleeping chamber of the tent. His heart had been beating wildly at that point, recalling the desperate way in which Lucien had entreated him the night before, the insinuations he’d quite bluntly made. 

Though he didn’t notice himself pause at the time, he remembers how his slight hesitation led Lucien to stop, to look back over his shoulder at Caleb, furrowed brow the only coherent indicator of his mood; and that was yet another thing that separated them. Lucien wasn’t difficult to read because he was constantly emoting like Molly, but rather, he was difficult to read because he almost _never_ emote, heated midnight discussions about…heated midnight discussions aside. 

“I have no intention of fucking you this night,” he’d stated blandly after a moment’s uncomfortable silence. “Sit here with me in comfort, and we will talk. That is all you promised me yesterday, and that’s all I ask for this evening.” 

Caleb only raised a brow in incredulity and then allowed himself to be drawn forward once more and sat down upon the furs that passed for Lucien’s bed, which were, much to Caleb’s surprise, not all that different from his own. And then, they sat, Lucien simply looking at him, without so much expression as would have made Caleb more comfortable as uncomfortable. 

“Well, you want to talk. Talk.” 

“I don’t know where to begin.” 

His reticence wasn’t what Caleb had anticipated. Now, he is willing to give anything for at the least the focused gaze intent upon him, where once he’d found it uncomfortable. Anything is better than the dead silence that he sits in now, in the unfortunate mirror of that night – it feels so long ago, despite the truth of the matter. 

So much is changed. 

“I am sorry I was frustrated with you that night,” Caleb intones with apologetic candor. “You did not deserve it.” 

But he receives no response. Lucien – Molly – or whoever – is stable. Logically, he knows that. Between three clerics, a paladin and a best friend with a little bit of healing magic to her name, they had managed to put him mostly to rights, but that doesn’t stop the discomfort of watching him lie there in the same place where he had lain beside Caleb such a short while ago. 

It hadn’t taken him long to forgo sitting, Caleb’s hands held in his lap. There was a restless energy to him that evening that was reminiscent of Molly, the frustrated desire to say something about something about which he didn’t have enough information to speak, and he’d pulled away with a huff and thrown himself back into the furs. It was too much Mollymauk for Caleb not to be thrown a little, though the intense look on his face was not. 

“It is hard to put into words what I wish to express.” 

His manner of speech certainly wasn’t either. 

“I told you that I feel things I cannot explain. I want so much to be what you are missing. It feels…important. I – augh.” His words descended into that foreign language again, as they seemed always to do when he was particularly struggling. “Have you ever considered souls, Caleb Widogast?” 

(That moment, Caleb remembers well, as it was the first time Lucien spoke his name.)

“Souls?” 

“And their nature. What are we? Are we bodies, who have souls, or souls who live within bodies? What am I, then? I am a body, and I am empty. Am I two souls? Am a merely a vessel, the memories of whose souls have permeated the flesh, leaving behind the remnants of lives summarily snuffed? Am I your Molly? Cree's Lucien? Am I an _I_ at all?" Only then had he turned to look at Caleb. 

Still, he is unsure what Lucien found there. Comfort. Hope. Desolation. 

“Or have I only ever been myself.” 

It was a statement and not a question, Caleb recalls. 

“Are you asking me what I think?” 

“What you think is irrelevant, unfortunately,” he’d responded and it had brought a sad smile to Caleb’s face, despite himself. 

“I am going to tell you, regardless. I think that you are informed by who you have been, but who you become is only who you chose to be. You may be affected by the choices of who you were before. You may still come to grips with the failings of those identities. But you are who you are. And who you are is all of who you have been and more of whom you will become.” He bit his lip, then, reached out a hand and landed it over the top of…over _his_ hand. “You may not be Lucien, or Molly. Or you may be both, or only one. But regardless, you are _you_.” 

“Who do you want me to be?” 

For that, Caleb had had no answer.

The skin on _his_ hand in smooth between the knuckles, where Caleb rubs the pads of his fingers absently, contemplating the question. 

It was so much easier to consider what Lu- what _he_ wanted of Caleb, not the other way around. _His_ wants were simple. He had made that perfectly clear, the heated look of desire the clearest of any expression that Caleb had seen on his features until the battle earlier that day, and it made him wonder what latent fantasy of Molly’s had been conjured into _his_ brain that was so utterly torturous, made him wonder just _what_ it was that Molly had thought about him. He’d never had any inkling that Molly was particularly attracted or not to any given member of the Nein, and though he’d lavished attention on Caleb from time, it generally came in the form of protective action in battle, and Caleb had never particularly bothered to contemplate why. 

Now, however, it was apparent. 

For as much as Mollymauk had lived without inhibitions, Lucien was blunt and forthright in a completely different way, one that commanded attention in a way Molly never had. Molly was flashy to make up for lack of charisma…Lucien had only to speak, and for some reason, Caleb had found that it was difficult _not_ to listen. 

A dangerous capability in the wrong hands. 

And then, he’d gone and tried to throw his life away for Beauregard all over again. 

Something about that tells Caleb that his hands aren’t completely the wrong ones. 

So, once again, he contemplates the question put to him, wonders just what it is that he wants of Lu-of _him_. (Because he does _want_ , and that goes without stating.) Then, in that moment, lost in thought, his hand receives a very purposeful squeeze and he looks up to see red eyes, just barely slits, staring back. 

“Good morning, mein Herr,” Caleb says, in lieu of picking a name. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like a mountain ran into me headlong,” comes the hoarse reply. “But I see that the sun is shining upon me now, so all must be well with what’s left of the world.” 

It takes Caleb several more seconds to understand the implication than he’d like, before flushing hotly at the endearment. It take quite a few more before Caleb realizes the truly important detail. 

He’s said the phrase in Molly’s accent, seemingly none the wiser for it. 

“I can get one of the healers-“ he starts to say, but the hand in his grips ever tighter. 

“No. Stay.” Just as swiftly as it came, it’s gone and Caleb finds that his heart drops at the alteration, if only slightly. 

“As you command.” 

The shush of his horns across the furs alerts Caleb to the fact that he’s moved his head. “It is not a command. It is a request.” 

“Then I will honour it.” 

More silence. 

Caleb remembers how silent it had been after he’d neglected to respond to the only question he was actually expected to answer. How _he_ had reached out and taken him by the hand and pulled Caleb down beside him, and then turned away and lay there, all night, just inches between them, sharing the most intimate air of breath. How they had said nothing more. Not one single thing. 

“I do not know what I want,” he says eventually, and to Lu- _his_ credit, when Caleb looks up, there’s not a trace of confusion on his pain-marred features. “I don’t know, but I would like a chance to find out. And I cannot do that if you are dead, do we understand one another, mein Herr?”

A curt nod ensues. “We do. And that is why," _he_ swallows heavily. "You must forget me." 

"I do not think I can do that," Caleb frowned. "I don't understand, why are you changing your mind now? You wanted me so badly, and now, when I acquiesce, you push me away?" 

"You want safety and I cannot provide that." He tries to sit, but Caleb presses a gentle hand to his shoulder, easing him back. 

"And neither can I." Caleb doesn't let his hand stray from its place, fingers trailing, lingering. "That's not what I'm saying at all. We live in a dangerous world. Just...I am glad that Beau is alive, but I would not like that to be at the expense of you."

The light in _his_ eyes softens and he no longer strains against Caleb's insistent hand. "I understand." He adds a word, a foreign word, that rolls off his tongue, but it's only his expression that tells Caleb it's meant as an endearment. "You're alright?" 

Caleb nods. "Yes. I am fine. Even my leg is not too bad, considering. Maybe the fight helped stretch me out." 

_His_ eyes darken - or rather, the colour of his eyes remains the same, but the lids lower, and his lips part slightly and the shadows seem to highlight the angles of his face. " _I_ would like very much to 'stretch you out' myself," he says, and there is the foreign word again, caressed so lovingly, but Caleb's ear ignores it this time, in favour of that too familiar accent, which _he_ slips into once more, without taking notice. 

Almost afraid that should he realize it, it'll go away, Caleb says nothing about it, but touches gently at _his_ forehead, brushing away a loose lock. "So you have frequently implied." He wants something alright, but he still doesn't know precisely what. "I...I have been meaning to ask - what would you...ah, Yasha, she calls you 'Mollymauk', and Cree and the others call you 'Lucien'. We've talked about your...your feelings about...who, ah, who you are, but -"

"I still don't know exactly who that is," - the accent is gone again - "but I'm me regardless of what you call me." 

It's not a very Mollymauk perspective, but neither, if Caleb has to guess, is it typical of Lucien. He takes it in stride. What else is _he_ supposed to do, when there are two choices and he is neither all of one nor the other. 

"What would you prefer?"

 _His_ brow furrows. "I don't mind that Yasha calls me Molly. I have never been bothered by the others calling me Lucien. I want you to call me what you are comfortable with."

Even with that final explanation, Caleb's not sure he has the answer either. 

"Can I lay here with you?" Caleb asks Mol- _him_ , tentatively. 

"Please." 

The accent is in and out, with no measure of consistency whatsoever, and Caleb decides to forget about it, to curl himself into Mol- _his_ side, and simply lay there, contemplating. 

"Where are we heading?" He asks eventually. "Where are you leading your Tomb Takers?"

There's a long, long silence. "To a new beginning." 

Caleb tries not to think about what that might mean. 

Nothing they encounter over the next month is as daunting as the ambush. Beau tentatively regains her closeness with ‘Molly’, as she calls him now. Caleb has had a harder time with that, privy to…insider information as he is. (Or at least, as he presumes to be. Yasha might know, he couldn’t really say either way on that.) But they all have found a way to harmonize themselves with the Tomb Takers, a way to co-exist without feeling edged out or subsumed, and Molly is very much a part of that, balancing his time between the two. Yasha and Cree share almost equal weight now, Caleb has noticed. He goes almost nowhere without the both of them beside him, and they all spend quality time with him in the evenings, getting to know the person their friend has become. The Tomb Takers, who have never been unfriendly, gradually warm up, even to the point where there is joking between the two groups (though Beau is still treated a little more carefully than the others).

These days, now that he is free of more pressing questions, Caleb has set his mind to determining just what it is that made Lucien the leader of such a devoted troupe of people. Their goal is still hazy at best (as Lucien refuses to say much else about it beyond that which he has already), and the Tomb Takers all speak with him just as casually as ever, without titles or any real deference beyond the fact that he _always_ has the final say. Whatever it is about him that elevated him to that position is beyond Caleb’s ability to discover through mere observation, and, during the time that they do spend together (frequent enough, and in a strange way, Caleb feels almost as though he’s being wooed) they speak of many other things. Of the stars – a favourite pastime of Molly’s or Lucien’s, he isn’t sure which – of tales the likes of which even Caleb has never heard, histories and mythologies so vastly alien that they must be Lucien’s, and stories far too improperly metaphorical in nature for them to be anything other than Molly’s. However separate the two might be, they are single-minded in their pursuit of him, though he’s not exactly made himself a difficult prospect. For all the talk and the innuendo and insinuation, Molly never makes to press beyond any improper bounds. 

They don’t spend any evenings together in his tent, generally parting amicably in the late evening to retire, and then, it is Yasha by his side, or Cree, not Caleb, though Molly’s longing gazes grow no less intense. 

One such night, he is heading into his tent to retire, the warmth of the flames flickering against his back, when a hand touches his shoulder lightly. It’s one of the half elves, the dark skinned, amber-eyed one. Caleb has never spoken to her, but knows that she is called Zoran, that she is one of Lucien’s inner retinue. 

Surprised as he is by her approach, he stops. “Zoran, ja? How can I help you?” It’s an opportunity – Caleb has never and will never, he knows, outgrow the fact that he treats most interactions transactionally, opportunistically, especially with people who may as well be strangers – and he’s not about to pass it up. 

“And you are Widogast.” 

He nods. 

“Lucien speaks highly of you.” 

“Does he?” 

She nods, a woman of few words. “I hope you do not disappoint him. He is counting on you.” 

It’s a chore for Caleb not to be visible taken-aback, as uncertain as he is by the meaning behind the words, but schools himself as best as he can. “I’m sorry, I am not sure what you mean?” 

Zoran studies him; there’s no other word for it. Then, with a slight step back, as though she’s only come to a realization now that perhaps she feels she should have before, she inclines her head, bowing slightly. “Perhaps I have misspoken. Excuse me,” and walks away. 

Even more bewildered than ever, Caleb is left to himself to ponder what it means. 

It is the first of many strange interactions. Zoran becomes more friendly after that, though their conversations never match that of the first; whatever it was she discovered that night, whatever misstep she’d made, it appears she knows better now, and there is never another false move. And never any new information either, as to just what Lucien’s goal is. 

Other too, begin to make strides with him; up until now, Caleb hadn’t really noticed that the inner circle of Tomb Takers had been keeping their distance from him, as though Lucien had personally staked him out with signs that read ‘do not touch’, until they’re suddenly speaking to him every day, making kind, if mundane conversation. Of them, Otis, the dragonborn with silver scales, is the most jovial, and Tyffial, the other tiefling, is the most gruff. 

None of them are open books, none of them can be pried open with the right combination of words under the right circumstances. They’re loyal, that is certain, and even those interactions give Caleb some semblance of a better understanding. 

“Beauregard,” Caleb begins one night, when they are the only two left beside the fire, though he keeps his tones hushed. “Do you remember when we discussed the possibility that Jester was…part of a cult?” 

Warily, Beau eyes him. “Yeah, I do. What’s up?” 

“Have you yet considered that the Tomb Takers are also a cult?” 

There’s a soft grunt, little more than a puff of air. “I mean, yeah.” 

Caleb shifts the embers with a stick, watching them flicker and flare. “And that Lucien is their figurehead?” 

At that, she starts abruptly. “You think Molly is leading a cult?” 

“Not so very long ago, you would have been the one coming to me with this suggestion, I suspect. It is easier, yes, to think of him as being _only_ our Mollymauk, but to do so is to be willfully ignorant, and you are better than that. Yes, he saved your life, and you have not questioned him since.”

“Yeah, well, I mean, you’re sleeping with him, so-“

“I am not.” It’s the first time anyone has said anything directly, since before the ambush, though he never made to assuage their assumptions. (Part of him wonders why, doesn’t have a way to rationalize it.) “I have not slept with him in the manner you’re insinuating. Not once. Have I stayed overnight in his tent, yes. I will not deny that, but I have not had sex with him, Beauregard.”

She colours, her dark skin deepening in a bright flush. “Sorry. I just…” 

“Now that that is out of the way,” Caleb cuts her off, “tell me what you think about my theory.” 

“I mean,” Beau shrugs. “They’re all pretty chill, but yeah, we haven’t heard a lot about their ‘mission’ or whatever. And they all have the same symbol on their robes. That’s kinda culty, but it’s also kind of religious-y, or like, Order-y. Like, a uniform? And they don’t call him weird things, and sometimes they argue with him, treat him like family…I dunno, Caleb. Maybe if we hadn’t been living with them for months now, I’d have a different answer for you. In a lot of ways, they kind of remind me of…of us.” 

It’s hard for her to say it, he can tell, the way she bites out the words, as though she’d like for the answer to be different, and he too wishes the same. 

Later, when their watch is over, Caleb makes his way to Lucien’s tent, where Yasha is just leaving. They nod to one another, and he gets the feeling that she knows that there is nothing…physically intimate between them, which is a relief after the conversation with Beau. 

The interior is smokey as ever. Soft voices float to him through the space, Cree’s rolling consonants and Lucien’s subtle tones. It’s only then that Caleb finally recognizes the language as Undercommon. He clears his throat, and the speaking ceases. Lucien steps into view. 

“Ah, Caleb. A moment.” 

Cree is there beside him and with a few curt words their conversation ends and his closest advisor smiles kindly at Caleb as she leaves the tent. 

With grace, Molly sweeps forward, taking Caleb by the hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles in as low of a bow as he is capable of without bringing that spike of pain forth. “This is a surprise. I was hoping to speak with you tomorrow, but tonight will do as well, but first, what can I do for you?” 

Caleb breathes a heavy sigh, and every question he had thought to pepper Lucien with dissipates. “I have no pressing business. Whatever you have to say, be my guest.” 

“Let’s sit.” Every time Molly bring him thus, Caleb is reminded of every other time they’ve sat together in that same spot, of every touch, ever conversation, and his heart tightens uncomfortably. “I have to ask you something. Something I don’t relish asking. A request. Deny me if you wish, that is your obligation.” His accent softens, though it does not change. “I said to you once that we are searching for a new beginning.” 

The air in Caleb’s lungs constricts. “Ja, you have.” 

“We’re close. We’ve searched long and hard, and finally, the time is come. We’re where we need to be. The last time we attempted this, it…failed…”

Caleb feels curiously hollow at the words, but Lucien keeps talking. 

“It failed. _I_ failed. But the world needs this, now more than ever.” The fervor in his voice is agonizing, terrible. “And while I can do this without you, I would rather you be by my side. Nothing…nothing will change if you refuse.” It’s what he’s not saying, what he’s insinuating, that bothers Caleb more. “There are others capable, but…” 

“I understand. A spell, yes?” 

“Yes.” 

“What will it…incur? I would specifics. I want to know what I am to do.” 

Lucien – or is it Molly? – averts his gaze. “I need to travel to a city that is on another plane. There, in this place, I will be able to seek aid.” 

“Aid…”

“Once, it would only have been for my people. Now…the world has much larger problems, and if this is successful, it may go a long ways towards restoring what we’ve lost.” 

Caleb finds himself…disgusted and impressed all at once. Disgusted that he’s left impressed. Lucien speaks and manages to tell him nothing, and Caleb knows that it is all he’ll get from him. “I see.” At least, he manages to sound unimpressed, and Molly still hasn’t looked him in the eye. “Well, I doubt that you will be more specific with me, even if I asked, so I will not.” 

The look on Molly’s face is stricken, but he swallows it back, and the expression fades. “You cannot know if I would answer you if you do not ask me in the first place,” he flings back, but Caleb can still see that he’s hit some sort of nerve. “Ask me.” 

“Will you answer?” 

The challenge is met with no response. 

Caleb bites his lip. “I thought not. It does not matter. Tell me at least this much, and be truthful. If I do this, you are positive, without a doubt, that whatever it is you are…calling upon for aid will not hurt this world more than it has been already? You are positive that you are not condemning us all to a worse doom?” 

“I have never lied to you, _fèrāvin._ ” Lucien says. “And I do not start today. What will come _will_ be better. I would not risk you. I would not risk Yasha, or Cree, or any of the Nein or my Tomb Takers, nor the people of my home or the people of the greater world. Not anyone, from the most terrible to the most innocent. I would not do this if I did not have absolute faith in its viability.” 

Faith, however, is not the same as knowing. 

It makes Caleb nervous, and it must be visible to Molly, who reads him all too well, because he takes Caleb’s hand in his own again, rubbing circles into his palm soothingly. “You don’t have to decide now. We have some time yet.” 

But Caleb knows that, one way or another, Lucien will go through with it. The only question is if it will be Caleb to help him, or a far more obliging Tomb Taker. His answer, he decides, is irrelevant. “I’ll do it. I will transport you to this place, however that is meant to be accomplished.”

“You might still change your mind. Think no more of it tonight.” 

The air between them is charged, suddenly. Caleb can feel it stealing across his arm where it emanates from their joined hands. Everything has coalesced, everything has led to the now, and as frightening as that prospect is, Caleb feels strangely at peace with it when he leans forwards and pressed an openmouthed kiss to Mollymauk’s lips. He cautious in his movements, and Molly doesn’t rush him, matching him instead still holding his hand with a gentle grasp as they come together for the first time. When Caleb pulls back, he’s almost afraid to look into his eyes and see someone else, someone who is not Molly, but Lucien is banished, inasmuch as that’s possible, and only Molly is there, Molly who looks at him lustful, but unsure, the momentum of his desire held barely restrained, as if by a thread, a storm of energy contained behind a single blockade. 

Caleb nods, and the dam is burst and Molly surges towards him, both hands grasping impossibly tenderly at the sides of his face, bringing him into a passionate kiss. It tastes of desperation, of longing, and of selfishness, and Caleb doesn’t hold back, allows himself to be moved, to be manhandled. There’s a quiet strength to Molly that has always been present, especially when he was mid battle, standing at Caleb’s guard. And it’s here now, under vastly different circumstances as they divest one another, clothing shed to the side, as Caleb’s hand settles over the memorial valley of Molly’s sternum to feel his rapidly beating heart, as they continue to kiss, slow and languid, as Caleb’s thighs are parted, so Molly can settle between them, as the shock of touch and friction bring Caleb to the precipice of pleasure, of rapture. Against all odds, Caleb feels secure at the press of slick fingers against him, at the way it leaves him breathless and yearning, even at the blunt pressure that follows a moment of unbearable loss, and the hitch of Molly’s breath against his ear (almost a sob, _almost_ ) as they fit together, move together, hold one another. 

For as frantic as it is, it’s achingly tender, and when they’re both spent, when Molly rests heavily above him, when he finally notices the straining burn of his muscles and the sharp pang in his heart, Caleb closes his eyes and commits the experience to memory.

It’s all too soon that Molly pulls away. Though it’s not far - he rolls, lays beside Caleb, no part of them that is close not touching – it still leaves Caleb feeling strangely bereft, as though he’s lost something rather than gained it. 

Molly nestles closer, noses at Caleb’s cheek, ghosts a kiss to his shoulder. “ _H’āy èlan, fèrāvin._ ”

The contrast of the undercommonish words in Molly’s accent is startling, and the pang in Caleb’s heart turns to a dull, throbbing ache, far worse than that between his legs. 

Hesitating, Caleb bites his lip. “In common, please?” 

The tender line of kisses on his shoulder halt. The moment is heavy with Caleb’s trepidation, with Molly’s silence. 

“I love you.” 

He closes his eyes, memorizes the sound of Molly professing his love. “And the other word?” 

“Ember of my heart. Beloved.” 

A questing, if hesitant hand falls light upon his chest, rests there, as if waiting to be told to move. 

Caleb makes no such request. 

Another kiss finds his skin. 

“Ich liebe dich auch, mein Schatz.” 

His heart is breaking and he doesn’t know why.

When he wakes, Caleb’s first thought is to wonder if Molly is still there, and his second, which brings the instant spike of adrenaline down considerably, is to notice that the hand is still resting over his heart, and hot breath comes in puff against his shoulder, and the weight of a twitching tail is curled over his leg. It’s wonderful, Caleb decides, to be held. Wonderful and terrible. And then, the twitching stops, and the rhythm of breaths changes, and Caleb turns his head to see one glowing red eye open, peering at him. 

The expression is unreadable, but something tells Caleb that he would know if Molly were happy. 

He goes to speak, but, with gaze trained on Caleb, Molly kisses his shoulder once more, as if daring him to break the silence, and the taloned nails of his left hand prick warningly into Caleb’s chest. The tail coils more tightly, and Molly slowly, slowly, draws them nearer one another, pulling Caleb to roll onto his side so that they’re foreheads knock and they’re close in a different sort of intimacy than before. 

“Stay with me.” 

The terrible, unidentified feeling returns and Caleb wants nothing more than to do just that, so he puts his arm around Molly in response. 

Sleep finds Caleb again. 

The next time he wakes is not so different from the first, except that he skips the momentary panic, for Molly is gazing down at him, light suffused through the tent silhouetting him ethereally, and a hand is on his check, thumb rubbing softly at the place where freckled skin meets ruddy beard. “Caleb, it’s time.” 

All of Caleb’s trepidation comes rushing back. 

They dress in silence, though Molly…Lucien… _he_ touches Caleb in small ways much more frequently now. Softly, he asks Caleb to help him with his shirt and cape, – he obliges without comment – but curiously forgoes the dark armor he’s worn every day since they were reunited. 

Caleb doesn’t ask. When they’re cleaned up and presentable, Lucien leads him out of the tent, where Yasha and Cree await. To their credit, neither of them bat an eye. 

“Let’s go,” Lucien says, and they follow him off into the underbrush without protest, leaving behind the sleepy camp. 

It’s early dawn, the colours of the sunrise glowing pastels of blossom and buttercup and lavender, and the air isn’t unbearably cold. Mist obscures the ground, and the foliage consumes them as they delve more deeply into the woods. 

A part of Caleb is surprised that this is all happening in private. Were it really a cult, he supposes, everyone would have been there to witness it. This seems instead like some secret tryst, stealing away in the early hours of the morning to do something ill-advised. 

The relative silence in which they walk is surprisingly companionable, and also, surprisingly short. They’re maybe ten minutes of tramping away when Lucien calls them to halt. 

“Here. It’s here.” 

‘Here’ is a small clearing. The ground is empty of vegetation, and the trees haven’t bowed inward to hide the sky, and the sun filters in through the leaves, dappling the sheltered spot in golden light. Lucien pulls the draw on his cape and it flutters to the ground as he stalks out purposefully toward the center of the clearing, scanning the area. 

“You are sure?” Cree asks, following him. “You are sure it is here?” 

“Yes.” 

She turns, not far from him and beckons he and Yasha forth. “This is the book.” She shoves it into his chest with unceremonious haste. “The spell is this one. Familiarize yourself with it now.” 

As ordered, Caleb descends into the mindspace that blocks out all else save his studies, tracing the lines of the spell weave with his finger, murmuring the words, considering the particulars of it’s application, testing, mentally, the limits of it’s ability and his in turn. It’s curious, as far as ‘transportation’ spells go, in that, it’s not really a transportation spell at all. It’s something else, something that he doesn’t quite- Suddenly, a touch falls on his shoulder. 

“Are you ready?” 

Cree’s voice is urgent, serious. 

“Ah, ja. As I will ever be, except, I was told that this…this is not a transportation spell. I-“

“More or less, it is.” Cree responds, without allowing him to continue. “Can you cast it or no?” 

“I can.” 

“Good. Yasha, your blade.” 

Yasha holds forth Magician’s Judge, and Caleb finds his confusion grow, and then…And then he spots her face. Tears stream from her face and she shakes her head solemnly. “I can’t…I-“

It’s Molly who rounds on her, draws her in close, hands on either side of her face, and it’s almost too familiar (too recent) for Caleb to bare as he rests his forehead against hers. Even though he’s whispering, Caleb can hear the words anyways. 

“I promise you, you won’t hurt me. I need you to do this. I need for it to be someone I trust. I wouldn’t ask it of you if it was going to hurt me, Yasha. I wouldn’t. I would never.” 

But Yasha shakes her head. “I-I can’t,” she says, voice hitching with the sob. “I can’t, Molly.” 

“Then you don’t have to.” He releases her, presses a kiss to her forehead. “You don’t have to. Stand guard then, please. For me.” 

“ _Molly_ -“

“Please, my charm?” 

Gently, she nods, her lip quivering. 

“Thank you.” 

In one swift movement, he wrests the sword from her grip. “Cree, I’ll need your assistance making sure that the positioning is right.” 

Caleb’s gaze shifts to Lucien’s other right hand, and notes that she too appears reluctant, if resigned. “O-of course, Lucien.” 

And then, Lucien turns to him, expectantly. “Cast the spell on the sword. And then your part is done.” Back to Yasha. “My charm, in ten minutes, use the sword to dispel the magic.” 

Yasha only nods. 

Lucien takes a deep breath and holds out the sword. Though his face is a mask of determination, Caleb can see the fissures in his façade, how his hand is tremoring, though he is more than capable of lifting Yasha’s enormous weapon, and he’s growing ever more concerned and reluctant himself. 

“What…what is this meant to do?” he asks, taking a half step back. “Lucien, what is this meant to do?” 

“Caleb, _fèrāvin_ , please-“

“Nein! Tell me! Tell me or I won’t-“ But an expression of such anguish crosses Molly’s face that Caleb can’t finish the sentence. 

“You won’t like it, but it must be done. Cree will explain while you wait. Please, Caleb, whatever happens, whatever I do here and now, just wait. I promise, everything will be alright.”

He’s mid thought, ready to retaliate, when Molly captures him in a kiss; it’s quick and frantic, and not at all what he was expecting, and before he can really think about what he’s doing, Caleb’s begun to recite the spell, hands weaving through the air over the sword’s shining steel. It has to be this way, and it was _Molly_ who told him, _Molly_ who kissed him, _Molly_ who entreated him, and if _Molly_ believes…

He casts the spell. 

As soon as he’s done, he regrets it, because with a grace and effortlessness that Caleb hasn’t anticipated, Molly sweeps the blade around, lifts it above himself and _stabs_. Caleb can’t help himself; he chokes in shock and horror as he watches the blade sink through flesh, Molly doubled over, but not stopping, and before he even realizes that he’s moved, he’s rushed to stop Molly, Cree has pushed him roughly aside, landing him on the ground as she moves to Lucien’s side, for it’s Lucien’s face Caleb see, teeth gritted in determination. She’s holding him steady as force and trajectory and now small amount of effort forces the blade through his gut and out his back. 

It’s that moment, just before she helps him to the ground, stakes him into the dirt with the terrible blade, that he realizes the steel is clean of blood, that there is no pain on Lucien’s face, no darkening stain seeping through his clothes. 

It’s as though the whole thing has been a sick joke. 

Scrambling to his feet, Caleb can only watch on as Lucien’s head finally find rest against the ground, as Cree lays him out, as his hands slip from the blade’s grip and land mutely beside him, as his chest stills, and his eyes never shut. 

His ears are ringing, and only when Cree grabs him across the shoulders and shakes him does he realize he’s screaming. 

“Trust him, Widogast! You promised you would! No harm has come to him, I swear it. Look, look and see, but do not attempt to remove the blade. Only then would you do him harm!” 

Stumbling over his own feet, which feel numb from the stupor, Caleb eventually finds Lucien’s side, falls to his knees beside him. Though the cloth is rent in two, the place where the blade impale flesh is absent of wound. No blood seeps forth, no flesh is torn. There is only perfect, unmarred flash, and Yasha’s sword. 

“I don’t understand.” Caleb shakes his head. “He’s not breathing. He’s…he’s-“

“He is not dead.” Cree knees beside him, grabs his hand and rests it over Lucien’s heart. The thrum there, while faint, is present. “Come, Yasha, you too, feel for yourself. See that this is according to plan. He lives!” Cree exclaims almost reverently. “While in battle, if only for a little while, Lucien can subsume his body with his spirit, where he is going today, his body cannot follow. Your spell…this sword, they serve as an anchor point, tying a thread of his soul to this physical form ensuring that he can return, that he cannot be lost to the ether. Ten minutes time on this plane is more where he is going. Enough, if only just. If you disturb the ritual before then, his soul will be lost and his body will perish in time. With patience, you will see. You will see that he will come back to us, this time. He trusts you. He loves you. Before, we were desperate. Before, there was no trust.” 

Suddenly, it clicks. 

_It failed_ the last time, Caleb recalls him saying. It failed, and Lucien died. 

It failed and Molly was born. 

“The spellslinger. From Rexxentrum. The one who betrayed you. They released the spell before he could return…” 

“Yes.” 

Yasha shakes her head. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. I…Caleb how long has passed? How much time do we have…when-when do I have t-to…” 

“We still have four minutes,” he answers dutifully, automatically, clocking away the seconds in his head. “Four minutes…” 

Such a long wait for such a short interval of time, and it passes agonizingly slow. Caleb, unable to stand the stillness and inaction stands, but Yasha remains where she is, her hand over his heart like a guard against the possibility that he could perish, as though, were she to remove her hand, he might simply slip away.

“One minute.”

Caleb thinks, as he says the words, of the night before, of the morning, of the way Molly held him, desperate and frantic and so full of expression, and he bites his lip to keep from crying. If he had known…

If he had known, he wouldn’t have done it. A weaker caster would have been chosen for the spell, and Caleb knows that he is already less that what he should be since the Second Calamity, that this spell, complex as it is, is the maximum his casting ability these days can maintain, and then only just.

“Five, four, three, two, one-“

Yasha’s hand finds the hilt and pulls it from him casting dispel simultaneously and Lucien surges up with a gasp. The sword clatters to the ground as Yasha draws him into her grasp tightly, sobbing into his shoulder.

A single tear escapes Caleb’s notice long enough to roll down his cheek, and he wipes it away, but no one has seen. Cree is busy checking him over, Lucien is busy telling both of his closest companions that he’s fine and Caleb…Caleb watches on, his nerves slowly calming, even as he begins to wonder, finally, what it is that Lucien has wrought on pain of faith.

“We need to get back to camp. We need to return home. Cree?”

“Of course. I have already alerted Tyffial and Zoran. They began to pack up camp as we left.”

“Excellent.”

They help Lucien to standing, and he looks over to Caleb with a grave expression. “Thank you for trusting me, _fèrāvin._ ”

“I only hope I did the right thing,” he says, and starts off back the way they came without another word, leaving Lucien behind.

When he gets back, the camp is a flurry of movement, of action, but he finds the Nein easily, and the round on him, full of questions.

“Now, hold up, everyone,” Fjord says. “One question at a time. What is going on? Being perhaps the most imperative.”

“We’re leaving apparently. Mollymauk…we performed a ritual. Yasha, Cree, Mollymauk, and I. And now, apparently, we must leave with all haste. I know no more than that.”

Nott is just starting in on a protest of indignation when Lucien and the other burst back into camp, and the bustle stops and everyone stares at them, Tomb Takers and Nein alike.

“It’s done. Our journey is ended. We can go home. We can go home to Rohsona with something to show for it. We are no longer exiles.”

In the same moment as the Tomb Takers begin speaking excitedly, Beau’s clear tone rings out alongside Jester and Nott.

“What the fuck?!”

Lucien’s gaze trains upon them, and with a wave of his hands, everyone around them sets back to work as he threads though them towards the Nein.

“Do you like, know Essek Thelyss then?” Jester asks bluntly before anyone else can get a question out. Lucien cocks his head bemusedly.

“Yes. And…I presume, so do you?”

“Yeah, we’ve like, totally been to Xhorhaas,” she says, nodding animatedly, though her wide eyes are serious.

“They had my husband hostage,” Nott cuts in, crossing her arms. “But then they let him go.”

Lucien looks sincerely unsure of what to say, and looks between them, from Beau’s betrayed glare to Caduceus’ pleasant, open expression. Caleb feels outside it all, feels beyond himself.

“If you have been to Xhorhaas, perhaps you can get us all there more quickly.” A sideways glance at Caleb let’s his intentions though. “Caleb?”

There’s more in the question than an inquiry about Teleportation circles. It’s a testing of the waters, a tentative tendril, reaching forward to see if its target will recoil. Caleb swallows.

“If it is intact, ja, I will be able to get us all there via a teleportation circle.” _We will see_.

Lucien’s answering nod is enough. “Pack your things. We leave as soon as possible.”

But before he can walk away, Caleb grabs him by the sleeve. There may not be another opportunity, if they’re heading for Rohsona, if Lucien is as important there as Caleb is afraid he may be. “What did you do? Where did you go?”

Lucien looks at him hard. “The Astral plane. And through there, the Upper planes, to the Luxon’s realm. You know of the Luxon, don’t you, Caleb.” His eyes are haunting.

“Ja.” The word is hardly a breath from his lips.

“The world will begin anew. The Divine Gate will be reformed. Everything will be right again. Rohsona will be free of its endless night. A new beginning, not just for Xhorhaas. But also for the world.” One sharp incisor presses dangerously at his lip. “Caleb.” Molly says, and it _is_ Molly.

“Ja?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

Caleb swallows around the lump that’s risen uncomfortably in his throat. “Thank you for telling me the truth.” Molly at least has the graciousness to look ashamed.

“You won’t lose me,” Molly says after a moment. “You won’t lose me when we get there. I don’t belong anymore. I was left, and I’ve carved a new place for myself. A place with you. If you’ll have me.”

It’s enough.

“I will.”

And Caleb kisses him. 

  
  



End file.
